


Of Reference Transactions and Academic Discord

by Molespeople



Category: Spy (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Academia, F/M, Librarians, Professors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molespeople/pseuds/Molespeople
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan is a reference librarian. Ford is a wacky professor and all of his students ask very complicated reference questions.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, enough is enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scavenger Hunts

**nbartingstall@libraryh3lp.com** : Susan, I might need some back up at the desk. 

Susan glances over at the chat window on her screen and minimizes her paper on teaching credit-bearing library instruction. 

**scooper@libraryh3lp.com** : I'll be right there. 

Susan bustles out of her office and peeks through the window separating the reference librarians' offices from the reference desk. The sight before her leaves her with the kind of queasy feeling she gets when she's had one too many Venti White Chocolate Mochas from the campus Starbucks. "Oh brother," she mutters to herself before pasting a sincere look of concern with just a tinge of helpfulness and knowledge upon her face. She opens the door.

"Hi there! How can I help you?" If Susan sounded any cheerier, she'd be a Disney princess chirping away to some freaking birds. 

Nancy wilts in obvious relief as the attention of the student shifts from her onto Susan. Susan nearly recoils at the massive amount of mascara coating the student's face. The student attempts to stifle their sobs and instead their words are punctuated with great gasps. "Our professor gave us an assignment. To find things In the library. And I've been here. For hours. And hours. And I don't. Know. What. To. Do." 

"Oh, jeez, okay, it's okay. You're okay. Just take deep breaths for me. It's just an assignment. We can help you." 

The student hunches over a battered piece of paper. "I. Already. Asked the librarian. And she didn't knooooow." The student bites down on their knuckles to stifle their howl. 

Susan leans over the desk and convenes with Nancy. "You didn't _know_?"

"It's one of those _bloody_ , pardon my French, scavenger hunts, Susan. I couldn't make heads or tails of it." 

Susan barely refrains from rolling her eyes as she hears the words 'scavenger hunt'. She turns back to the student. "Can I see your assignment?" 

Susan frowns, overcome with sadness, as the student shakily passes her the piece of paper. Susan takes a moment to glance at the assignment, but in that moment she manages to be filled to the brim with animosity and sheer loathing. The assignment is a load of shit, like a cow just took a dump in her bare hands. "Um," Susan puts a finger to her lips in a desperate attempt to curb her tongue. "Who? Who is your professor?" 

The student pauses and unlocks their phone. "I'll need to refer to my syllabus." 

Susan takes a moment to rein in her disappointment. It's nearly midterms and this kid doesn't know their professor's name? "Once you find out that helpful information, let's go back to my office. We'll figure out this assignment. Plus, I've got cookies! How about that? Who doesn't love cookies?"

Nancy nods agreeably. “Yes, Susan makes the most wonderful cookies.”

The student squints at their phone. "It's Theater 210 with Professor Ford." 

Susan smiles brightly. "Okay. Thank you for that information. Let's get those cookies, huh?" Susan turns quickly towards the door in attempt to hide her rage. Why the hell would an acting class require a 1972 periodical in Icelandic about astrophysics _in print_? She's going to show this Professor Ford that hell hath no fury like a librarian scorned.


	2. E-mail Escalation

Susan loads the formerly sobbing student up with tentative but authoritative answers _and_ cookies, and then escorts them back to the reference desk. 

"Thanks again, Dr. C." The battered piece of paper they were carrying has been replaced with just one of the emergency cookie tins Susan has lying about the office.

"You are very welcome, Kyle. Now you pace yourself with those cookies, kid. Otherwise,  
I'm going to have to help you find the RCs." 

Nancy bursts into laughter. "The RCs. Oh, Susan, that is a good one." Susan wiggles her eyebrows and grins at Kyle as she waits for a similar response, but they just give her a blank stare. 

"The RCs? It's where you would find books about ... You know what? Never mind, it's just dumb librarian humor. Go on and get out of here before I subject you to any more jokes. But, hey, feel free to e-mail me or you can use that chat feature I showed you if you have any more questions."

Kyle waves. "I will. Thanks again, Dr. C." 

Nancy waits until Kyle retreats before she leans over the reference desk conspiratorially. "Oooh, Dr. C.! You officially sound so cool, Susan." 

Susan grimaces. "You know, I shouldn't have told the joke. As soon as I started to explain it, I could just hear my mother's voice in my head, 'Quit while you're behind, Susan. Why even bother trying?' Yeah, should have stopped before that joke."

"That joke was hilarious! The RCs! Gastroenterology, overeating, just hilarious." 

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you think so." Susan points towards the door to the offices. "I'm just going to see about busting this professor's balls." 

Nancy smiles serenely. "Go, my child, with my blessing." She leans back into the office chair, limbs flopping about like octopus tentacles. "I just have another two hours on the desk." 

Susan pauses, propping the door open with her body. "I'll bring you a cookie." Nancy makes a gleeful sound as she spins around in her chair.

As soon as Susan closes the door to the rest of the library, she raises her voice so the librarians cloistered in their offices can hear her. "Has anybody worked with Professor Ford before?" 

Susan waits patiently in the hallway. Finally, Sharon pops her head out of her office. "Ford? I have. I'm the liaison for that department." 

Susan flaps her arms excitedly. "Have you seen the scavenger assignment he's making his students do? Have you tried touching base with him?" 

Sharon sighs. "Yeah, I've seen it. I can't really make Ford do anything about it, though. I tried once. It didn't work." Sharon retreats back into her office before she can add anything productive to the conversation. 

Susan sighs and looks at the ceiling of the hallway. Jesus, maybe she should do some dusting later. "Do you have his e-mail on hand, Sharon?" 

There's a long pause before Sharon's response emerges from her office. "Yes." 

"Send it to me over chat, please, and then you can go back to shoe shopping." 

"Ugh. Fine. It's not going to help though." 

"Thank you, Sharon," Susan chirps as she heads into her office. She sits down at her desk and cracks her knuckles. She's got an e-mail to write.

**Regarding Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment**

_Dr. Ford,_

_We recently had the opportunity to review the assignment that you have created to demonstrate the library's resources. Would you be open to a meeting to discuss potential ways to improve this assignment to better accomplish your intended objectives? We would be more than happy to work with you in order to suggest improvements that would ultimately improve your students' success rates. We have collaborated with other faculty members and have been successful in designing assignments that complement the research skills and resources that students will need in the future._

_Sincerely,_

_Susan_

_Susan Cooper_  
_Reference Librarian, Department Head_

Susan checks the e-mail for typos before sending it off. She's pleasantly surprised when she receives a response rather promptly. That emotion fades when she reads the reply. 

**Re: Regarding Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment**

_Cooper,_

_No._

_\- Ford._

Susan frowns and stares angrily at the wall in her office before composing a reply. 

**Re: Regarding Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment**

_Dr. Ford,_

_Just to clarify, you are not open to a meeting? I would love the opportunity to discuss your assignment. It's my professional opinion that it has the potential to be problematic for your students and unlikely to produce the results that you are looking for. A short meeting now could save you a lot of time in the long run. My schedule is flexible. Feel free to suggest some times that are convenient for you._

_Thank you,_

_Susan_

Susan takes a deep breath, putting herself in a calm state of mind, before proofreading the e-mail. She waits five minutes, reads the e-mail again, and sends it. Susan returns to Word and resumes work on her paper. When her Inbox chimes, Susan navigates to her Internet browser. She sees that it's a response from Ford and her cookie-filled stomach sours.

**Re: Regarding Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment**

_Cooper,_

_Just to fucking clarify I am not interested._

_\- Ford_

Susan can feel her eye twitch. She hits the reply button a little too forcefully and then her fingers start flying across the keyboard.

**Re: Regarding Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment**

_Dr. Ford,_

_Your assignment as it stands is poorly designed and impractical for imparting the research skills that your theater students will need to know in the future. I strongly suggest that we have a meeting to rectify some of the issues contained therein. In case I have not been clear, we have students in tears asking questions about the impossible tasks, in correspondence to the library's existing resources, contained within the assignment. Please suggest some times that would be convenient for our meeting._

_Sincerely,_

_Susan Cooper_

Susan finishes typing with a flourish before sending the e-mail off. She spins triumphantly in her chair until she hears her Inbox chime again. Susan spins around in disbelief until she sees that it's only the newsletter from the president of the university. She breathes a sigh of relief and then her Inbox chimes again. 

**Re: Regarding Library Scavenger Hunt Assignment**

_Cooper,_

_Tough titties. Now fuck off._

_\- Ford_

Susan glowers at her computer screen. This Ford guy is lucky that there’s a computer screen between them. If she saw him in person, she’d give him a piece of her mind, unhindered by the specter of monitored electronic communication. “Sharon,” Susan yells, “Where the hell do I find Ford?”

Susan can hear Sharon sigh from across the hallway and the sound of her chair as she uses it to roll over to Susan’s doorway. 

“Do you really want to know? It’s not going to help.”

Susan gestures to her face, devoid of any levity. “What does this face tell you?” 

Sharon sighs and inspects her nails, picking at the pink polish. “Your face tells me that you’re going to be making a mistake soon.” She rolls her eyes. “You can usually find Ford at the Starbucks. He sits in the corner. Bald, unusually well dressed for someone in academia. Looks a little bit like a Shar Pei.” 

 

Susan refrains from rubbing her hands together. “Perfect. Thank you, Sharon.”

Sharon rolls her eyes before using her feet to push herself back to her office. “Whatever. You know where to find me when I can tell you I told you so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some of the next chapter written but I don't really know where I'm going with this. Stay tuned, folks.


	3. Starbucks Showdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan confronts Professor Ford face-to-face.

Susan power walks over to Starbucks in the Student Union. She barely resists kicking the door open and yelling, "Where's Ford?" Susan thinks that the resulting loud bang would have been viscerally satisfying and shouting Ford's name would have been suitably dramatic given the circumstances, but the students are admittedly more than a little jumpy, especially around this time of year. Susan decides to enter the Starbucks more sedately, like a normal person.

Susan would like to think that she identifies Ford immediately. Sharon's description was pretty accurate, the man she's pegged as Ford is ridiculously well dressed for a professor. Susan refrains from picking at her own top in a fit of self-consciousness. She bought it at Nordstrom and it's a nice flattering number (as it should be for 80 bucks), but Susan starts to feel like she dug it out of some dollar store bargain bin compared to Professor Ford's impeccable tailoring. However the real giveaway, Susan feels, that identifies the man as Ford is that he's the lone occupant of the only table in the Starbucks suitable for group work. Some of the students, understandably, are flashing him dirty looks - he's taken up the whole table with his cell phone, a satchel and four pieces of paper. The man she suspects is Ford responds with a look of smug antagonism - a raised eyebrow that sends his forehead cascading into wrinkles, accompanied by an aggressive tilt of the head and a mocking pout.

Susan stands awkwardly around the vicinity of the counter. Should she order a coffee? It might look a little more natural, but she might be tempted to throw the hot liquid in his stupid, wrinkly face. Susan moves closer to the table, pointing a finger to a chair across from Ford.

"Is this, uh, seat taken?"

"No. You sit right down, Gorgeous". 

Susan can feel her face flush against her will. She wasn't expecting the accent or the compliment. "Well, don't mind if I do." The chair seems unbelievably loud as it scrapes against the cement floor. When she settles into the chair and looks at the man across from her, she's met with a leering grin.

"I don't believe we've met, darling. The name's Ford, Rick Ford."

Susan folds her hands on the table. "Cooper, Susan Cooper."

Ford recoils into his chair like a cobra, his chair jolting with the impact. "Fucking hell. Who the fuck let you out of the library?"

Susan can feel her eyebrows making nice with her hairline. "Let me out of the library? I'm a _librarian_ , not a dog."

Ford rubs at his face. "Right, it seems you can't fucking take _no_ for an answer. But this right here is fucking hallowed ground, your kind isn't allowed here." 

"You're not even making sense,” Susan hisses. "I'm a librarian, not a vampire. I'm allowed to visit Starbucks."

Ford crosses his arms. "If you fucking say so. Now, what the fuck do you want?"

Susan looks around at the students not so casually watching their interaction. "Hey, watch it with the F-bombs, buddy. We're drawing a crowd."

Ford waves his hands in the air. "Let me get this straight - I'm not entitled to my own fucking opinions and now you're the fucking language police. I think you need to seriously think about stopping before you fucking infringe on any more of my fucking civil liberties."

"Well, you need to seriously stop with your ridiculous assignments."

Ford snorts. "Ridiculous." 

"Yeah, I said ridiculous. Your students are not learning anything from your idiotic scavenger hunt." 

Ford's face clouds with defensiveness. "What the fuck do you know about teaching? All's you do is put the little books back on the shelf." 

"If you honestly think that's all I do. We're going to have a problem, buddy." 

"I'm not your fucking buddy. I've got a fucking Ph.D." 

"So do I. And I'm faculty." 

"What? You're fucking faculty. That may be the case but you don't know fuck all about teaching - those twatty little instruction sessions at the library don't count." Ford jangles his fingers in midair. "Now we're going to demonstrate fucking spooky operators. Now that's a right laugh." 

Susan can feel her librarian hindbrain recoil. "Spooky? Are you talking about Boolean operators?"

"Spooky, Boolean, what the fuck ever. You still know nothing about teaching." 

Susan resists the urge to poke her finger into the odious man's chest. 

"I'll have you know I teach three credit-bearing classes." 

Professor Ford crosses his arms. "Right, so I'm supposed to be impressed?" 

"I'm not asking you to be impressed. I'm asking you to stop asserting that I know nothing about teaching. Do you think having your students attempt to complete outlandish assignments counts as teaching?"

Ford rolls his eyes and Susan wants to run him over with a book cart. 

"They need to know how to use the library. You should be fucking thanking me."

Susan stands. "Maybe you need to have one of those 'twatty' instruction sessions if you think that's how you use the library." Susan waves her finger in the air like she's attempting to levitate a feather. "Do not do my job for me because you're doing it wrong." 

Ford jumps to his feet. "No, _you're_ doing it wrong."

Susan jabs her finger against the table. "No, _you're_ doing it wrong." 

"No, you are."

Susan waves her hand in the direction of the baked goods display case. "I am so tempted to buy one of those crappy muffins just so I can throw one at you."

"You would waste a perfectly good muffin. You really are a fucking monster." 

Susan waves her hand in the air like it's a lasso. "Those are not good muffins. And you're just a fucking dickbag."

And of course that's when Susan hears the sound of someone clearing their throat. It's a very distinctive sound, a sound that Susan instinctively associates with Dean Elaine Crocker. In this instance, Susan wishes she wasn't always right. She looks over and confirms it is indeed Dean Crocker standing in the Starbucks, tapping her foot angrily. 

“My office,” Dean Crocker growls. “Now.”


	4. I'm Just Happy That My Boss is Much Nicer Than This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cooper and Ford face the consequences of their Starbucks brawl.

Dean Crocker gestures to two institutionally upholstered chairs. "You losers can sit down." 

Susan settles into the chair. It's not particularly comfortable. Ford seems to make himself at home with his slouched posture. His legs spread indecently wide. Susan is only a little tempted to yank him upright by his collar.

Dean Crocker folds her hands primly on the dark wood of her desk and stares at them, a smile on her face. Susan tries not to fidget under the onslaught of pleasantness but it's difficult. She thinks about speaking to at least break the awkward silence but Crocker's eyes narrow and Susan decides not to. 

"Congratulations, you're looking at the two new members of the Faculty Research Committee."

"The fucking Faculty what?" 

Dean Crocker steadfastly ignores Ford's comment. "I want to see grants, people. Money in the bank. You two actually being productive. I'll have Patrick send you the e-mail with all the stupid details." 

Susan opens her mouth to protest. She's been integral to increasing productivity in the Reference Department. 

Crocker holds up a hand, forestalling any protest. "Does it look like I care, Cooper?" Crocker lifts a page of a yellow legal pad. "The way that I see it, you'll be joining, let's see, Professors Boyanov, Fine and -" Crocker pauses and cocks her head. "Algo? Alto? You know what? Never mind, there's another one of you miserable tenured fuckers on the committee. Now, get out of my office before you get your loser juices everywhere and I have to get those chairs reupholstered." 

Ford opens his mouth. "Well-" 

Crocker points her finger at Ford. "I swear to god, Ford, if I have to send you to Compliance, Diversity and Ethics again. Jesus Christ, you're a regular walking lawsuit. I wish we could afford to rubber-room you, Ford, I really do."

Ford puffs out his chest. "I'm immune to sensitivity training, aren't I? Braver men have tried and fucking failed." 

Susan can feel her brain skip a track in a moment of pure disgust. "That's not -- That's not something to be proud of. Also frankly just a tad misogynistic." 

"Misogy-fucking-what? I happen to love women. In fact, I once spent six months living as a woman preparing for my role in the cinematic masterpiece, _Redemption for the Magpie_ , in which I played a thief, a thief that in order to pull off the greatest heist of his life becomes a nun in order to infiltrate the Vatican. Only then does the thief learn the things that are really important in life: Revenge, money and sex." 

Susan snorts. "Sounds like a real cinematic masterpiece. Why didn't the thief infiltrate the Vatican as a priest?" 

Ford glares at her. "That's not how the Academy Awards work, is it. What the fuck do you know about art anyway?" Ford waves his hands back and forth mockingly. "Did you read about it in one of your precious librarian books?"

Susan narrows her eyes at Ford. "Plenty! I know plenty about art. And I don't appreciate -"

"Enough! Put a sock in it, Cooper." Crocker points a finger at Ford, banishing the smirk from his face. "You, too, mister." Crocker throws her hands in the air, exasperated. "I didn't buy tickets to see this shit show. You're working together, period. And you're going to be successful if you want to keep your damn jobs. Patrick is sending you the information." Crocker looks down at her legal pad. "Now, get out of my office." 

Ford casually leaves, but Susan rises cautiously from her chair. "Really Dean Crocker, maybe this is a little harsh. What did I do to deserve working with _that_?"

The dean doesn't look up from her work. "Out, Cooper." 

Susan curtsies. "Uh, yes, ma'am."

Susan tentatively backs out of the office. She's not mentally chastising herself for curtsying, nope. But perhaps she doesn't notice Ford lounging against the wall. 

"I can't believe you fucking curtsied. Just crawl up her arse while you're at it." 

Susan's lip curls in disgust. "Gross, get away from me Ford." 

Ford crosses his arms. "What crawled up your cardigan and died?"

"Uh, you did."

"No, Cooper, I only crawl up skirts and you'd be fucking singing a different fucking tune if I had."

Susan rolls her eyes. She has no words, absolutely no words that she can string together coherently right now.

Ford pushes off from the wall. "So I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Just fix your stupid assignment," Susan grumbles before retreating down the carpeted corridor.

\-------------------------------------

Crocker stomps out of her office and glares at Ford leaning up against her wall. "Are you waiting for somebody to take a god damn picture? Get out of here, Ford, before I call Campus Security." 

Ford rolls his eyes and pushes off from the wall. "Whatever." He sticks his hands in his pocket and walks the hallway like he's a model in a fashion show for narcoleptics.

“Walk faster!” 

“You’re not the boss of me.”

Crocker cocks an eyebrow. “Seriously?” 

“Right then,” Ford says before running away.

In the resulting silence, Crocker finds herself glaring at the wall. She can tell where Ford's greasy cue ball of a head was resting against the paint. Crocker huffs in disgust. "Patrick, remind me next time that I'm only conversing with those asshats via e-mail." 

Patrick guiltily closes Facebook. "Um, noted, ma'am." 

Crocker narrows her eyes at Patrick. "If I find out you tweeted any of that conversation..." 

Patrick looks at her blankly. "Tweet, ma'am?"

Crocker sighs and rubs her forehead. "I'm taking the rest of the day off. Jesus, I need a drink," she mutters as she walks back into her office. 

Patrick looks up excitedly. "Ma'am?" 

"No, Patrick, that doesn't include you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write. I couldn't have done it without my awesome friend, Hien. Thanks, Hien!!!!!


	5. Don't Worry About Your Troubles and Your Strife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan tries to process her assignment to the Faculty Research Committee.

Susan sequesters herself in her office for the rest of the workday. She receives the aforementioned email from Patrick containing the objectives and members of the Faculty Research Committee. The mere existence of the e-mail destroys any deniability on Susan's part. There's a stupid paper trail and the deans of the various colleges are copied and this just feels like the worst day ever. Susan stares at the blinking cursor in her Word document. It would be nice if this was a dream but even her sub-conscious isn't that screwed up. She's also pinched herself twice just to make sure that she wasn't asleep - Susan would be willing to have to wake up in her bed and deal with the nagging specter that she's already _been_ to work today. It's just not fair. 

The injustice sticks in her craw as she makes spaghetti that night, sullenly stirring tomato sauce and reviewing the contents of the email. The list of committee members reads like a shitty reference book, a real _Who's Who_ of the pains in her ass: 

Dr. Aldo, I'm-A-Like-Cher-Just-Call-A-Me-Aldo, the Romance Languages professor that Susan has to watch like a hawk whenever there's a student assistant working the desk. 

Dr. Rayna Boyanov, the business professor, who enjoys ordering the reference librarians about like they're her servants. Susan has had to intervene on more than one occasion. 

Dr. Bradley Fine. Honestly, Bradley is kind of perfect but maybe they got a little too drunk at a conference in Orlando and made out. The aftermath feels like the social equivalent of Jenga. Who's going to cave first? Because, you know, what happens in Orlando ends up in a Facebook photo album with the highest privacy settings known to man. 

And then there's Ford.

She's not jumping for joy at the prospect. But then Susan has an epiphany that has her whipping her wooden spoon to her face like it's a microphone. "I could write a paper!" Her excitement results in a trail of red streaking her cabinets and backsplash. "Oh, shit." Susan puts down her spoon and looks for a paper towel.

Susan doesn't make eye contact with her reflection as she brushes her teeth. Her apartment is quiet apart from the buzzing of her electric toothbrush. "Fah-cult-y Lee-ays-on: Em-prooving Re-lations with Fah-cult-y." Susan spits in the sink. "Jesus Christ, that's a stupid title."

Later as she wriggles under the covers, she maybe spends a little too much time punching her pillow. "It. Will. Look. Good. On. Your. CV."

Susan stares at her ceiling fan. "Who am I kidding?" She whispers to the dark. "This is going to be a disaster."

Things don't look better once she's slept on it. Her bad mood carries over to her commute. She's fully prepared to drive her sensible sedan to campus, maybe belt out some power ballads along the way, except she has to deal with some asshole constantly cutting her off and weaving through traffic for 40 minutes. She had thought she had lost them only to have them cut her off yet again minutes from her destination.

Susan throws her hands up, accidentally banging her hands against the roof of her Honda, as she watches the car creep into her lane. She's been waiting to turn at this red light for what feels like forever. It's one of those dumb lights that only lets two cars through at a time, on a good day. "Oh, sure. Just go ahead and cut me off. Again." Susan watches the driver's head bob around through their heavily tinted window. It's hard to tell if the driver is dancing or jacking off.

The light turns green and the car doesn't move. "What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Go!" Susan starts moving her hands in the hopes that she'll be able to usher the car forward with her mind. "Go. Just go already."

Susan watches as they turn without indicating. "Who taught you to drive? I hope you choke on a jellybean," she yells as she quickly accelerates into the turn. 

Susan stomach drops when the car turns into the faculty parking lot, _her_ faculty parking lot. "Please don't be someone important," she whispers to the steering wheel. Susan parks a few spaces away. She's steeling herself to exit her vehicle and ignore the other faculty member. Of course that is when she looks over and sees that the asshole is Ford. And like some sort of stupid magnet, her eyes attract his and they make eye contact. And then Susan makes the rash decision to turn her car back on and reverse out of her spot. Halfway down the parking lot row, she regrets this decision. There's a 40% chance of rain, she stress-baked cupcakes, and this is the closest lot to the library (that she's allowed to park in). She idles at the end of the row deciding if it's worth it before circling back around to her original spot. When she sees Ford leaning against a car waiting for her, coolly sipping from a Venti Starbucks cup, she's nearly tempted to drive off again. 

Susan gets out of her car, collects her cupcake carrier and tote bag and steadfastly ignores Ford.

"You done, Cooper?"

"I thought I forgot the cupcakes. But, no, the cupcakes were right there. The office party is safe," she finishes lamely. 

Ford quirks an eyebrow. "If you say so." 

Susan answers with an arch of her own brow. "I say so." She decides to be the bigger person and walk away while she can. She's got cupcakes in her hands and there's no guarantee that her next interaction with Ford won't result in fisticuffs. "You could write a book," she mutters under her breath. "You could even write two books. Focus on the positive, Susan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience - I sometimes lose motivation when the words are putting up a fight! Thank you for reading! And thank you to all the lovely people who have left comments or kudos - they always mean a lot. 
> 
>  
> 
> It's my dad's birthday this weekend so I probably won't have a lot of time for writing. We'll see. I'll try to stay motivated and actually finish this thing. I think it's going to go to some really fun places.


	6. This Is How It Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford has some feelings about this....Faculty Research Committee.

Ford can feel his forehead wrinkle as he studies the recipe before him. Everything is about rules and recipes these days. Theatre had always appealed to Ford because of the lack of rules and the freedom to embrace his flair for the dramatic. So needless to say he doesn't fucking appreciate being told what to do, who to do or how to fucking do it. You could even say it's his modus operandi. Ford hadn't been hailed as "That Hot British One in the Leather Pants" by _The North Virginian Star's_ Paulina Evans in 1999 because he was a member of some twatty committee. 

Ford stares at the grains of Arborio drowning pitifully in a tawny broth, and here he thought his luck was turning around. Sitting in Starbucks, people watching and honing his art and then he had been approached by a copper haired goddess. He'd thought he'd have the opportunity to end his six-month dry spell, the unfortunate consequence of being a bald, middle-aged bachelor. And then the goddess opened her mouth and revealed herself to be a copperhead, Dr. Susan Fucking Cooper. Ford stirs the rice a little too forcefully at the memory, the wooden spoon hitting the side of the pot like a malfunctioning jackhammer. 

It's just hard to reconcile the reality with the impression he had gathered from Beverly's blatherings. When Fine had said, _"Oh, Cooper. She's just the sweetest,"_ Ford's mind had supplied an octogenarian, a raisin-like thing, who kept humbugs in her cardigan. When Fine went on about _Coop this_ and _Coop that_ , the mental image transformed into a frat boy with a passion for waterskiing and Hacky Sack. 

But the English professor that Ford periodically was forced to collaborate with had said nothing about Cooper to suggest that she was an attractive and angry woman. Just another reason why Bradley Fine is a self-absorbed fucking wanker. So all in all this Faculty Research Committee is a right laugh, a farce even, more likely to send his career careening into the shitter than have Crocker sing _his_ praises. 

The whole fucking situation just leaves a bad taste in Ford's mouth, which is a shame, because what's he supposed to do with all this fucking risotto. 

Most of the risotto goes into the fridge. The rest is washed down with a shit Scotch. And then it's off to bed where he sincerely hopes that his French cotton sheets and down duvet will solve a majority of his problems.

So Ford's fucking surprised when the Faculty Research Committee turns out well. I mean, he can barely tolerate Fine, but that's to be expected. They go out for pints sometimes, just him, Fine and Alto. And the presentation that he and Cooper spent weeks on gets accepted and they fly to Vegas and it's a fucking mess. This twat who looks like Steve Buscemi loses their luggage and they're just stuck in the airport for fucking days. But they make it to the hotel that the conference is at just in the nick of time for their presentation. Afterwards, Ford is decompressing in his hotel room when he hears a knock at his door. He thinks that's a little strange. His room service has already been delivered. Ford's tempted not to answer. He's in one of those fucking stupid hotel robes, Noddy's on the telly, he’s _comfy_. But he's got this feeling that he's just got to answer the door - there's no other option. 

He's a little surprised to see Susan at the door and she's looking at him like _he's_ the room service. 

"What took you so long, Ford?" She's draped bonelessly against the door and he just wants to melt against her. 

"Sorry, I was in bed already. I wasn't really expecting company." 

And Cooper's eyes just get real wide. "Oh, am I disturbing you?" 

And Ford must shake his head because then she says, “In that case, I've got a research proposal for you." And her fingers drop to these little pearly buttons and Ford just follows her fingers as they start undoing this seemingly never-ending series of buttons.

And Ford tries to be cute or suave or some shit and is like, "Oh fuck yeah, I'm into this from the abstract alone." 

And somehow they're pressed against the edge of the bed and Susan is finally done with all those fucking fiddly buttons and she starts pulling back the fabric. Ford clutches at the hotel's duvet, bracing himself to see the glory of Cooper's chest, and then he looks up at the mounds of creamy skin. 

"I want to see grants, people," the Crocker-shaped nipples on Cooper's chest start chanting. "I want to see grants, people!" 

And Ford recoils backwards and - 

"Oh fucking fuck!" Ford screams into the darkness of his apartment. He's on the floor, tangled in his duvet and sheets, which are like a cotton umbilical cord connecting him to his bed. Ford lays his head back against the floor. "Fuck." 

He doesn't go back to sleep. 

Needless to say Ford needs a lot of coffee in the morning. In his haste for caffeination, he apparently cuts Cooper off multiple times. He's sitting at the light sipping his Venti White Chocolate Mocha with two extra shots of espresso when he realizes it. Between cutting her off and his weird dream, he deserves to spill some of his hot coffee in his lap, which, of course, draws her ire when he doesn't immediately move when the light turns green. 

He might feel slightly better that Cooper is just as flustered when she discovers his identity. 

He's sure as fuck not looking at her chest anytime soon though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! The end of the semester is kind of hectic. :/ 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	7. The Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first meeting of the Faculty Research Committee.

When Susan opens the door to the Reference Department, things are suspiciously quiet. Ordinarily, she would suspect that she's the first in the office to arrive, but there are lights on and the specter of human occupation behind the individual office doors. 

Susan plops the cupcake carrier on top of the microwave in the small room that functions as both a kitchen and a copy center. "There's cupcakes," she announces before retreating into her office.

The silent parade of coworkers to the cupcake carrier confirms her suspicions. Susan waits for her computer to finish booting before she taps out a message.

 **scooper@libraryh3lp.com** : You're a dirty rat.

"I most certainly AM not,” Nancy shouts from her office, her voice muffled with cupcake. 

Susan opens her e-mail and shouts in return, "Literally, no. Figuratively, you most certainly are." 

Nancy skulks to Susan's door. "Honestly, Susan, how is that fair? I'm wounded that you would say such things. Never mind the fact that a shouting match in a Starbucks is not exactly the model of subtlety." 

Susan turns in her chair and looks evenly at Nancy. 

"Oh, Susan. It's not fair. How can you expect me to stay silent when everybody is pestering me for all the details?" Nancy makes her hands look like pinchers. "Pester. Pester. Pester." She stabs at the air like her hands are demented weirdly fleshy ostriches. "Sharon over here was particularly relentless. I really am very sorry that I divulged more details of the conflict and its aftermath than you were intending on sharing." 

Susan stops glaring at her monitor detailing all of the particulars of today's Faculty Research Committee meeting when Nancy's apologetic talk trails off. 

Sharon waltzes her way to Susan's office door peeling the wrapper off her coffee caramel cupcake like she's pulling petals off a flower. "Faculty Research Committee, huh?" 

Susan rolls her eyes. “You’re gonna wanna put that cupcake in your mouth, Sharon. It might be better than the alternative."

"The alternative?" Sharon asks coyly because she's a demon.

Susan tries not to puke in her mouth as she says, "I told you so?" 

Sharon takes a bite of the cupcake. "Mmhmm. Also this cupcake is delicious."

"Right," Nancy interrupts, "I think that's quite enough of poking the bear. Come along, Sharon." 

Nancy starts pulling Sharon away before darting back to Susan's door. "I really am very sorry." 

Susan sighs, "You're fine. I did it to myself." 

"You really did!" Sharon yells from her office. 

"Not _helping_ , Sharon!" Nancy hollers in return.

Susan looks at her ceiling in despair. "It's just a bitter pill to swallow." She can see Nancy nodding agreeably in the periphery. "We're meeting today."

"Well, that's fast, isn't it. Maybe it won't be that bad?" 

_________________

It's so much worse than Susan could have possibly imagined.

To get from the library to the designated conference room for the Faculty Research Committee, she has to pass the seemingly never-ending construction site. If it was any old construction site it wouldn't be a big deal, but it just happens to be the construction site where her ex, Jerry, has been working for the past 10 months. 

"Hey, Penny! I kind of miss that ass. You could bounce a penny offa that ass."

Jerry's an _asshole_.

Susan promises herself for what seems like the thousandth time that she's going to change her hair color, so she spends the rest of the walk Googling hair salons and colorists. 

So when she looks up from her phone as she pushes open one of the glass double doors, she's kind of surprised (but not really) to find Aldo leering at her from the other side of the atrium. Susan tries to linger in the atrium as long as possible, which is a bit of a challenge since the school took kind of a minimalist approach to decorating the space. She ends up feigning interest in a plant for about two minutes, two minutes longer than anybody should feign interest in a plant, before her stupid compulsion to be aggressively punctual moves her closer to the meeting room. 

Aldo is lingering outside of the meeting room, casually caressing the wall, and Susan is just very tired and it's only 9:48am. "Hello, Professor Aldo." 

"You are on the Faculty Research Committee as well? What a truly delicious surprise."

And of course, Aldo decides to enter the meeting room at the exact same time that she does, so it's like a weird handsy funnel. 

"I feel like we will be seeing each other often like this, no?"

"At work, in a professional context, sure, Aldo."

"Ah, yes," Aldo says agreeably, but continues to wriggle his eyebrows suggestively until Ford arrives. 

Susan swears it's the only time she'll be relieved to see him. "Ford, have a seat," she says graciously, gesturing widely to the chair next to her. She only offers out of a sense of self-preservation. Ford's an asshole but he's not handsy like Aldo. 

Ford crosses his arms and moves to the corner. "I'll stand."

"You're just going to stand in the corner for the whole meeting?"

Ford glowers from his corner. "Yes." 

Even Dr. Boyanov gives him a weird look when she marches into the room - her designer heels striking the carpet so hard that Susan is surprised she's not seeing sparks. It's one of the only signs that Dr. Boyanov is aware of her surroundings, the other being her running commentary to the person on the other end of the line. "No, no, De Luca, I can't submit the stupid bid because I'm stuck in a room with a bunch of people who look like they smell of sausages. And one of these weirdoes is just standing in the corner like he's from some Third World Country that doesn't have fucking chairs or something." 

Dr. Boyanov always kind of amazes Susan in a horrible way. You can practically hear the capitalization in her disdainful tone. She's not a Very Nice Person. 

Boyanov angles the phone away from her body, one palm cupped ambiguously over it, in a misguided attempt to muffle the sound. "This is a chair, "she shouts, over-enunciating. "You sit in it. Do you know sit?" Boyanov shakes her head gently but derisively as any vigorous movement could cause the massive coils piled precariously atop her head to tumble down and kill someone in the resulting hair avalanche. She resumes her call. "I swear to God, De Luca, I think this person is from the _humanities_ or something. You can almost smell the poor." 

Ford stares at Boyanov, his eyes bulging out of his head like a pufferfish.

Oh Jesus Christ. How did Susan even remotely deserve this punishment? She has to pretend to study the faux wood grain on the conference room table or she's going to start laughing forever. Susan didn't even know that Ford's eyebrows could go that high. 

"What the fuck are you blathering on about? Of course, I know what a chair is. Whether I want to risk my lumbar health for that sedentary monstrosity is another fucking matter. And this," he says making a sudden stabbing motion towards his suit, "is a $625 sport coat." 

Susan tries not to roll her eyes. Because there are witnesses. Too many witnesses. And if she were to roll her eyes, they would just keep rolling right out the door.

Thankfully when Fine enters the room, it signals a cease-fire of sorts as Boyanov would much rather flirt with Bradley than continue to needle Ford. Thankfully, Susan doesn't have to bear witness to the mating rituals of the overzealously coiffed business professor for long as Dean Crocker stomps into the room.

"I'll keep this brief because _I_ am a busy person. You're expected to meet once a month. I don't care when. I don't care where. You can meet on the fucking MOON for all I care, but you _will_ be meeting once a month. Handle it amongst yourself like adults. And yes, I do know that's a lot to ask. For Pete's sake, Ford, sit in a goddamn chair. Quit it with the brooding Phantom of the Opera bullshit."

Susan raises her hand. 

"Nope. Don't care," Dean Crocker says as she throws a piece of paper in Susan's face.

Susan splutters and bats the piece of paper away from her face, but then has to go chasing it about as it falls just out of reach at her feet. "But -"

"Cooper, I swear to God, calm down and read the stupid agenda." 

By the time Susan retrieves the paper from the floor, doing a weird slump hunch thing, mindful of her cleavage and Aldo's attentive gaze, Crocker has thrown another piece of paper her way. This time Susan is able to slap it down towards the table. Her palm slaps too loudly against the laminate. 

"Cool it, Cujo," Boyanov hisses under her breath.

Dean Crocker looks to the ceiling. Susan would like to think she's praying for strength because Susan can relate. 

Crocker shuffles the rest of the paper against the table. "To clarify slash reiterate for those who neglected to read your e-mail," Crocker says staring at Ford, "the Faculty Research Committee is tasked to increase research endeavors among faculty on campus. The committee itself will also be expected to represent the targeted level of scholarship, the details of which are contained within the dead trees in front of you." Crocker looks at her watch. "Now, I have to go to a meeting." Crocker pauses to look at the faculty around the table. She points her finger at each of them as she says, "Don't. Fuck. This. Up. People." Dean Crocker stares at each of them before exiting the room.

The dean's exit leaves a vacuum of sound and energy. Susan waits as everybody exchanges furtive glances, trying to suss out the power dynamic. She's learned the hard way that people don't always welcome Susan becoming the de facto leader. But perhaps she waits too long because everybody stands and begins to shuffle out the door.

"Uh," Susan says, raising her hand. "So, I'll just send out a Doodle poll then?"

"That would be great, Coop."

"Whatever," Boyanov says with a toss of her head. 

"I shall look forward to this _Doodle_ ," Aldo adds looking at Susan's chest.

Susan smiles shakily. "Please leave now, Aldo." 

Aldo bows, "As my lady wishes," he says continuing to address her cleavage.

"Do whatever you fucking want, Cooper," Ford grumbles as he pushes Aldo out the door.

Susan stares at the empty doorway and regrets everything. "This is going to be like herding cats," she whispers, horrified. “I don’t even like cats.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me but I'm pretty pleased with overall, I think. I apologize for the delay - I hope it was worth the wait. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	8. Doodle Poll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan makes a Doodle poll so the Faculty Research Committee can agree on a time.

It sounded so easy. Susan was going to head back to her office, maybe grab a cupcake, and just send out a Doodle poll. The members of the Faculty Research Committee would respond with the times that worked for them. The stars would align and a mutually convenient time would be readily apparent. 

She gets a cupcake. 

Susan nearly chokes on it as she finally gets to inspect the paperwork that Crocker had distributed during the meeting. 

Her coughs spray crumbs over the damning papers that name her and Ford Chair and Co-Chair of the Faculty Research Committee. 

“Susan!” Nancy shouts from her office. “Susan, are you choking? Do I need to provide the Heimlich maneuver?”

“No," Susan wheezes, “There’s no need, Nancy. I’m unfortunately still breathing.” 

“Food just went down,” Susan makes a rolling gesture towards her throat, “the wrong tube. I also might have vomited a little bit in my mouth. I think I swallowed both food and vomit.”

Nancy moves from her office to Susan’s doorway. “Well, that doesn’t sound good,” she says, buzzing with nervous energy. 

Susan takes a swig of water and gestures ambiguously with her hand as she swallows. “Yeah, no, there was definitely some vomit in there.” 

Nancy presses one of her clammy hands to Susan’s forehead. “It doesn’t feel like you’ve got a temperature.” 

Susan moves Nancy’s hand away from her forehead. “I’m unfortunately not sick. Maybe I'll just rub my face over the keyboards in the computer lab, get a viral infection, and never have to come back to work again." 

"I'm afraid you're more likely to get Pink Eye from going that route than anything particularly debilitating. But don't worry; I'll be on the lookout for people who show signs of pneumonia, or even TB! It's really the most dramatically portrayed disease, Susan. You can go about coughing into a dainty white handkerchief."

Susan squints at Nancy. "I don't know what's worse the fact that you're offering to be on the lookout for a disease vector or the fact that I briefly considered taking you up on the offer." 

"Honestly, Susan, what are friends for? I'll be on the lookout for potential plague victims, and you, I think, should treat," Nancy snaps her fingers and wiggles her long limbs, "Yourself." 

Susan rubs her forehead. She'll be sporting a series of permawrinkles like a Klingon if this continues. "I have to send out this Doodle poll." 

Nancy tut-tuts, "Treat yourself." 

Susan spins towards her computer and cracks her knuckles. "I'm gonna show this Doodle poll who's boss and then -" 

"You're going to treat yourself," Nancy crows. 

Susan's gaze darts to the corner of her computer screen as she types in yet another e-mail address. "I'm more concerned about getting something to eat besides a cupcake." 

"And then," Nancy says, pointing at Susan, "you're going to treat yourself." 

Susan authoritatively presses the Enter key and gets up from her computer. "And then I'm going to teach three sessions of English how to find peer-reviewed articles." She makes her way to the break room. 

Nancy follows, dragging her feet. "This is exhausting, Susan! Can't you just treat yourself already? This is giving me flashbacks to when I tried out to be a cheerleader, Susan. They said some very nasty things, Susan, some very nasty things." 

The solid plastic-y slap of the mini fridge as it closes barely interrupts Nancy's tirade. Susan doesn't have time for culinary niceties, like a warm meal, so she focuses on putting as much food in her mouth without further mishap. She tries to concentrate on eating but Nancy's expectant gaze puts a damper on her meal. 

Susan rolls her eyes. "Ah promesh ooh tree mahsel." She swallows the impeding mouthful. "Happy, Nance?" Susan tilts her wrist and looks at her watch and sighs. "I guess I'll finish this later."

Nancy looks at her expectantly. 

Susan looks at her balefully. "You packed a salad again." 

Nancy nods mutely, a wide smile on her face.

Susan points at her friend. "You really need to start packing a real lunch. None of this five pieces of lettuce and some nuts crap." 

Nancy snorts. "You said nuts."

"Seriously?" 

"It's the hunger, Susan, it makes me do dangerous and stupid things." 

Susan holds out the Tupperware container. "Just take the spaghetti already." 

"You're the best!" 

Susan rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I'll see you later." 

 

\---------------------- 

When Susan returns from her classes, the response to the Doodle poll is kind of sickening. All it requires is selecting the corresponding radio button for the day of the week and time that works best. Susan perhaps went a little bit overboard with the options. She Doodle-polled the heck out of November. The resulting responses are like all of the respondents decided to serpentine as if agreeing on a time would result in a fatality. 

Susan glares at the screen. Maybe it would. 

Dr. Fine is the exception; his sensible green checks a balm to Susan’s ire. 

She’s not sure if it’s some sort of sick joke, but the only consistent oasis of green in a sea of red is a Thursday, November 24th more specifically, otherwise known as Thanksgiving. 

“These assholes,” Susan grumbles under her breath. 

Susan thinks of the pies: the pecan pie, the sweet potato pie, the pumpkin pie and most importantly her apple pie – a palate challenging combination of lemon curd, apples, and salted rosemary caramel. She likes to think of it as her pastry pièce de résistance, delicious, but specially crafted to repel most of her family members at Thanksgiving, which means more pie for Susan. Susan needs pie to get through Thanksgiving with her mother. 

Susan begins to type. She’s going to have her Faculty Research Committee meeting and her pie too. 

_All,_

_From the Doodle poll, it looks like the time that is convenient for everyone is November 24th, 2016 at 4:00pm. Since the university will be closed, I suggest that we meet online through the school’s learning management system. I’ll set up a room and send out a link through e-mail closer to the meeting._

_In the meantime, please be sure to review the committee bylaws and documentation attached to this email._

_If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me as chair of the committee or our co-chair, Rick Ford._

_Sincerely,_

_Susan Cooper_

_Susan Cooper_  
_Reference Librarian_  
_Department Head_  
_scooper@gmu.edu_

 

Susan swivels triumphantly in her office chair. When she hears her Inbox chime, she turns towards the monitor.

_Fuck you, Cooper._

_\- Ford_

Did Susan purposefully try to piss Ford off? Maybe? Did it work? Yes. Ford can go suck an egg. It’s 5:00pm and she’s leaving. 

Susan picks up her phone. “Hi, I’d like to make an appointment. Does Rebecca have any openings for today? Cut and color? Yes, I can hold.” 

Susan takes advantage of the jazz fusion interlude. “Nance, I’m treating myself!” 

“Finally!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update took way way way too long - Apologies. I hope to finish the rest of the fic by the end of October????


	9. Many Turkeys on this Turkey Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's finally another meeting of the committee.

Susan does her best to avoid the members of the Faculty Research Committee. Excluding mandatory interactions in the course of her reference librarian/faculty duties, Susan thinks she's done a _pretty_ good job. She's more than happy to take a minute to toot her own horn because otherwise she'd have a pretty toot-less life - Not including Nancy's efforts or when Susan makes chili.

The one faculty member that has been harder to avoid is Ford. 

They have permits for the same parking lot. She would much rather be Parking Lot Buddies with Dr. Fine, but _he_ springs for a permit in the parking garage. Susan has expensive taste in kitchenware, she can't rationalize an extra $200 for the closer spot on her librarian salary, Department Head or not. 

It doesn't help that it's a bit of a walk from her parking lot to the library, so when she inevitably runs into Ford it's a protracted, awkward thing.

Like right after she got her hair cut and colored. 

Susan had gotten out of her car and she was feeling good. It was looking to be a perfect October day and the morning had that refreshing cold clean smell. She felt lighter and bouncy due in no smart part to her new do. Susan had a feeling that she was going to enjoy being a Brunette. 

And you know when you can sense someone is behind you but you don't want to _look_? Usually it starts a quick little internal monologue because it's really hard to look backwards discreetly and it's like, "hey, just checking to see if you look like a murderer". But then that seems like a really stupid reason not to check and so you look anyway and that's followed by that brief flash of self-loathing like, " Come on, Susan! It's eight in the morning, you're in public, pretty sure the person behind you is not going to drag you into the bushes and then dump your body into the pond", but you simultaneously start pumping yourself up, like, "You gonna mess with me? I'm gonna kick your fucking ass. You're not dragging me into any bushes, buddy." _That_ feeling. 

Susan gets that feeling and like a modern-day genderbent Orpheus, she looks behind her and immediately regrets it, because it's Ford and he's clearly looking at her ass.

Susan doesn't have the time, patience or willpower to analyze her own strange concoction of feelings because Ford's forehead wrinkles in horror and he points his finger at her accusingly. 

"Entrapment!" 

"Excuse me?"

"This is like that movie where Ashley Judd plays Libby Parsons, a wife, falsely convicted of killing her husband. Once paroled, she makes it her mission to actually kill her husband. Tommy Lee Jones plays the parole officer responsible for tracking her down." 

Susan can't believe she actually has to be on a committee with this person. "Double Jeopardy?"

Ford snaps his fingers. "It's like bloody fucking Double Jeopardy. I can't be tried for the same crime twice!"

"So, you're admitting to," Susan gestures spastically to her person, "before?"

Ford's eyes narrow in concentration. "I plead the Fifth", he says with a growl before stomping off ahead of her.

He doesn't get far. Susan tries to focus all of her attention on the crosswalk signal rather than the bald-headed person standing next to her. 

When the signal changes to walk, Ford stomps off again. 

"So, uh, I'll just e-mail you about the committee meeting?" 

Susan is too far away to hear Ford's response but she does get the impression that it's laden with expletives.  
\-----------

Ford spends the rest of the month doing his very best to avoid Susan Cooper. The most challenging bit is he parks in the same bloody lot as her. And so he has to think fucking strategically in order to make it from the parking lot to his office unscathed by Cooper's relentless opinions, unaffected by her presence- the way her body hints of impeccable softness, the way her cardigan molds to her sultry curves, the flash of the molten red hair halo that brightens his morning.

Because that's the other fucking surprise. Ford gets out of his car and for a brief moment, he's fucking ecstatic not to see his redheaded Valkyrie, the invader of his subconsciousness, unconsciousness, and fucking et cetera. 

It was a fucking trap and he let his fucking guard down and he took a moment to fucking appreciate the virtually buffet-worthy buttocks before him, definitely worth a bite or two and coming back for seconds and thirds. And Ford had been found out and confronted by his _now_ raven-haired queen. And it had been real fucking awkward and he'd managed to make himself look like a massive twat. 

And thus he deploys his entire theatrical arsenal - Costumes, makeup, his unparalleled acting talent - in the hopes of avoiding further run-ins. Ford definitely could risk another hit to his ego.

And yet for whatever fucking reason, Susan Cooper can spot him from a mile off even while he's giving fucking Oscar-worthy performances of a groundskeeper picking up trash next to the parking lot. He'd even gotten one of those little reflective vests to complete his groundskeeper ensemble. His frat boy complete with shades and bad beer, his Serious Academic Professor, all of these disguises had been summarily ruined with "Why do you have a beer at eight in the morning, Ford?" or "Do I want to know why you're dressed as Einstein, Ford?"

He spends the rest of the month running from the parking lot to his office. If Cooper can't catch him, he can't embarrass himself. It's fucking simple - a well-trained Alsatian could also reach the same conclusion. Ford does make sure to promptly answer the fucking onslaught of e-mails from Cooper about the committee, about the online Thanksgiving meeting, about who the fuck knows what. Drawing her ire would defeat the whole goal of avoiding her in the first place. 

So even though he's in the middle of the fucking _Atlantic_ on a chartered _yacht_ , he's made a very dedicated effort to attend the Thanksgiving meeting of the Faculty Research Committee and not be a complete _twat_ about it. Apparently he's the only one who got the memo. And he doesn't think it's that fucking hard but apparently asking his fellow committee members _not_ to be fucking twats is like asking Meryl Streep not to get nominated for an Oscar. It's almost fucking impossible. 

And the whole circus of a committee is more than a little infuriating. If he weren't sprawled out in the middle of a massive bed on a 70-foot yacht called the _Crissangel_ or some shit, he'd be helping Cooper keep everyone in line with pointed glares and sheer physical intimidation.

Susan's yell cuts through the committee cacophony "For the last time, does anybody have any changes to the minutes from the last meeting!" 

"This stupid computer isn't working, Kubler. I can't see you! I can't see a fucking thing." 

Ford can imagine Susan's face now, reddened like a cherry tomato, rubbing that one spot over her left eyebrow in disbelief. 

"For the last time, Rayna. For the very last time, I am not transmitting any video. This is an audio only call." 

Rayna's disdain is almost a physical presence in his cabin. "What's the _fucking_ point of that?" 

Ford winces. Cooper's going to have a fun talk with her dentist if she keeps gnashing her teeth like that.

"Are. There. Any. Changes. To. The. _Minutes_. From. The. Last. Meeting."

There's a brief blip if silence before everybody speaks at one time. It makes a horrendous sound that could be liberally interpreted as a no. 

Susan exhales. "Okay. Fine, good. Now-" 

Ford rolls his eyes as Fine says, “Yes?" 

"No, not you, Bradley. That was an adjectival fine."

Ford rubs his mouth. "Can we try to move this along?" 

Susan harrumphs but continues. "I trust everybody got their e-mails to their department assignments. Any objections?" 

"Why do I have so many departments?" Ford gets up from the bed and pours himself a healthy measure of scotch from the sideboard.

"You have," Ford can hear Susan counting under her breath, "Five departments." 

"Yes, yes. Five! It's completely abominable. I have a very busy schedule." 

"I can understand your hesitation. What number would be more reasonable, Rayna?" 

"Zero!"

Susan counters with a "Zero is definitely not going to happen, Rayna." 

"I think Rayna has a good point." 

"Thank you, Bradley." 

Ford bristles in his terry cloth robe. "For fuck's sake, Rayna. Get off your fucking high horse. Cooper is liaising with _fifteen_ and she's a Department Head. Your argument is not valid." 

"Ah," says Aldo unhelpfully. 

"I think, profanity aside, Ford has a good point."

Ford takes a large sip of his scotch. He waits for the burn to fade before continuing. “Let me get this straight, Beverly, do you think everybody has a fucking good point?" 

"Good point." 

What follows is a blanket of silence only broken by heavy breathing and a faint soundtrack like those found in...

"Oh, come on," Susan groans. "Who's watching a porno? Wait, that's a stupid question." 

"I, ah, do not know what you are talking about. I just happen to find this conversation, how you say, extremely stimulating." 

"Stop playing the pornographic movie, Aldo." 

"If I muted it would that be, ah, acceptable? It is about to be the money shot."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Rayna hisses. 

"Nope, nope. That pretty much just makes it worse." 

Ford winces and takes another sip. He agrees with Susan. 

"Just give me, hm, one second to find the _button_."

"Oh, come on, that's not cool, man!" 

Ford heads to the sideboard for more scotch.

"No, I think it is very cool, especially since he is about to put his penis..." 

Ford pauses and brings the entire bottle back to his laptop. "Oi! I don't think we need the fucking play by fucking play!" 

"Do they not say sharing is caring?"

"Not about this," Ford hisses.

"New rule. No porn during Committee Meetings like ever. Now are there any other objectives to the department assignments? Rayna's complaint is noted in the notes. The whole porno thing....is not."

Ford studies the polished wood grain on his cabin walls and waits for another twatty exchange.

"I'm taking the silence to mean there are no objections. Next item on the agenda is regrettably scheduling the next meeting-" 

"Seriously, Cooper, just send out one of your Poodle polls. Let's not tempt fucking fate." 

"Yeah, I'll send out a _Doodle_ with some times in December." 

"Fucking wonderful, now I've got a fucking yacht to get back to. Merry fucking Thanksgiving." 

"Keebler! How do I turn it off -"

Ford exits the web conferencing program before he can hear more of Rayna's stupidity.

He puts his laptop on the floor and pushes his face into one of the many pillows on the bed. Ford would have stayed like that contemplating the fact that the Faculty Research Committee was obviously a punishment in more ways than one, but his mum knocks on his cabin door. 

"Ricky darling, are you done with your little meeting?" 

"Yes, Mum." He groans into his pillow. 

"Food's going to get cold at this rate." 

"I'll be right there." 

Ford groans as he pushes away from the pillow-y comfort. He hopes Cooper had somebody there for her after that hellhole of a meeting. 

And he's definitely not looking forward to the next one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have these lofty goals like "I'm going to finish this before October is finished" and that's probably not going to happen considering that today is October 29th. That being said I am committed to finishing this, but it's probably not going to happen in November because I'm doing NaNoWriMo! I should update in December though and if it's December and there's no chapter, y'all have the right to be like WHERE IS THE NEXT CHAPTER. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	10. December's Meeting: Down to the Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan is really tired and maybe she lets thing slide a little too long.

The first day back after the Thanksgiving break signals the start of the end of semester gauntlet. Susan hasn't done laundry in two weeks; she's down to her last pair of underwear.  
She really, really needs to do some laundry. 

And now she's just standing in three-days-worn-sweatpants staring forlornly into the hazy and cold abyss. Some stranger had taken too long to make their frozen food selection and now the glass door to the freezer case has gone opaque with fog, condensation, and the tears of the overworked everywhere. She's going to have to rustle up enough energy to open the door. Susan commits because she's a survivor and she's _going_ to eat some frozen organic vegetarian concoction tonight. She opens the door and she's trying to decide between the "Veggie Loaf" and the "Palak Paneer", when she finds her head wedged into someone's warm and manly armpit.

The first thought that flashes through Susan's mind is that it's been way too long since she's gotten laid. Her second is how rude do you have to be to violate someone's personal space so thoroughly. Her third thought is that the person is wearing the same $180 cologne as Ford. It's not weird that she knows that because really how could she not after spending 45 minutes in the fragrance section at Nordstrom while Nancy was trying on shoes. And that's when Susan realizes that her head is currently nuzzled, like an egg, under Ford's chicken butt of an armpit.

Susan rotates as much as she can, trapped as she is against the freezer, and visually confirms that it is Ford. Just as he's about to grab a "Red Curry", Susan head-butts his armpit. The freezer case door slaps shut.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Cooper?" he groans while rubbing his armpit. 

"What's wrong with me? Wait your turn!" Susan hisses as she pushes her hair back into place.

"Stop hogging the freezer case then."

"I'm not _"hogging"_ the freezer case. Just because you're impatient doesn't mean -" 

"Oh, come off it, Cooper. I can guaran-fucking-tee that you know exactly what your options are."

"Oh, I'm so sorry I haven't memorized the layout of the frozen food aisle and I actually cook most of the time."

Susan tries not to fidget as Ford side-eyes her sweatpants like he knows she's been living in them for three days. 

"I'm just saying it's not fucking brain surgery and I should know. I played Galen St. Jean, a brain surgeon, who operates on the hit man responsible for murdering his girlfriend two years earlier. And he has to decide whether he-" 

Susan rolls her eyes and turns back to the frozen entrees. It's definitely down to the "Veggie Loaf" and the "Palak Paneer", but then again the "Pad Thai" provokes a favorable response from her salivary glands. 

Ford's growl of frustration is her cue to brace herself as Ford makes his move for the "Red Curry" again. 

 

"Just go," Susan yelps as the freezer door bounces, slapping her on the ass, "Eat a Hungry Man, Ford."

Ford presses her further into the freezer as he struggles for leverage. "Have you seen the sodium content? Do you want me to die, Cooper?" 

Susan flails, knocking Ford back and haphazardly raking her hand down the shelves causing boxes of frozen paneer and Pad Thai to rain down. Susan throws the boxes in her basket before retreating from the freezer. Her front feels decidedly frosty and she resists the urge to press her arm self-consciously against her chest. "It's all yours," she says, waving magnanimously towards the freezer. "Are you fucking happy now?"

"I'm fucking ecstatic, Cooper," Ford grumbles, pushing her aside to plunder the freezer.

Susan quickly walks away and tries to push down the thought that Ford was really referring to something else and not his access to the freezer. She also desperately prays that a video of the encounter won't show up on YouTube.

Seeing Ford reminds her of the Faculty Research Committee, which admittedly she's kind of put on the back burner, the _back back_ burner. Between writing final exams, grading papers, exchanging e-mails with panicked GPA-obsessed students, and helping students with their last minute research, Susan hasn't had the time or, quite frankly, resolve to call another meeting of the committee. Susan pokes miserably at her now-cold Pad Thai. Yeah.   
\-------------------------------  
So, of course, once Susan has resigned herself to arranging and holding another Faculty Research Committee meeting, it's impossible to nail down the rest of the committee members. She spends a week trying to contact them with the methods that have worked before, but as she stares down the last day of the semester, Susan decides she doesn't give a crap about playing nice anymore. 

Her first stop is the Starbucks. It's pretty quiet in the post-finals lull, but it seems to get even quieter as soon as Susan crosses the cafe's threshold. Ford is at his usual table and thankfully he seems resigned to his fate.

"Cooper." 

"Ford." 

Ford sighs, rubbing at his mouth. The rasp of his stubble is particularly loud. He gestures lazily for the bundle of yellow oversized envelopes in Susan's possession. 

"Let's see what you've got then." 

Susan lets the envelopes spill onto the table in a relatively controlled manner. One envelope escapes and as Susan saves it from the slightly tacky cement floor, she hears Ford mutter as he derisively pokes the remaining envelopes about on the table. 

"I'll track down Beverly and Aldo, but you're on your fucking own with Rayna." 

Susan opens her mouth to protest, but she honestly doesn't have time for another round of Cooper v. Ford.

"Fine," Susan grumbles. 

And then Ford holds his hand out and Susan can only stare in bewilderment. 

"Your phone, Cooper." 

Susan instinctively recoils in horror. "Why do you need my phone?" 

Ford's mouth crumples in frustration. "Am I supposed to contact you by fucking messenger pigeon once I round up Twat Uno and Twat Dos?"

Susan winces. "You could...e-mail me?" 

"Oh, right, because I'm not going to have my hands full with two adult men." Ford jabs his finger in Susan's direction. "And I do fucking realize how that sounds. If you could stop being so fucking contrary, Cooper, for once in your life."

All Susan wants to say is, "I'm fucking contrary, huh? You're the reason we're in this mess in the first place! Your library assignment was so stupid, Ford! And you had to be such a complete asshole about it." Instead, Susan whines as she removes her phone from her coat pocket, unlocking it. 

Seconds feel like an eternity - Ford seems to spend way too long poking around in her phone, but finally his phone vibrates. Susan snatches her phone out of his hand before he can say anything. Briefly Susan considers how rude it would be if she wiped down her phone in front of him, but she's in a hurry. She doesn't have time.

"I'll call when I find Rayna," Susan wakes up her phone and looks at the time. "And just for the record, we need to find everybody by 3:00, Ford. I'm really not looking forward to Crocker murdering us and making it look like an accident." 

Ford crosses his arms. "If you say so." 

Susan flaps her arms, "Okay? Can you get up? Start looking for Fine and Aldo?" 

Ford slowly stands up from his chair and collects his belongings and the yellow envelopes. 

Susan waves her arms like an overenthusiastic flight attendant, trying to usher him towards the door. "Hurry up, Ford," she hisses. "Jesus Christ, are you waiting for an engraved invitation?"

Ford just stops right in the doorway and smirks, "Good things come to those who fucking wait, Cooper." 

Susan finally just throws her hands in the air before pushing her way past him. "Murder, decapitation, termination, only some of the things that are coming our way if we fucking wait. Text me when you find Aldo and Fine." 

"You're fucking welcome, Cooper!" 

Susan walks away. Her raised middle finger is her response.  
\-------

Susan picks her way through the icy sidewalk, her lungs are kind of burning, and maybe it was fun to see her breath earlier this morning, but halfway across campus, it's kinda lost its appeal. Susan huddles against the wall of the physics and astronomy building and pulls her phone out of her pocket. 

_"Business department. Anton speaking."_

"Tell me where Rayna is, Anton."

_"Why should I?"_

"You know, Anton, my desk is just covered, and I mean covered, in important papers. Oh lookie here, here's the request for Dr. De Luca and here's a request for Dr. Cress."

_"Okay, so?"_

"So, Anton, what do you think would happen if, I don't know, this sheet of paper that I'm holding in my hand from a, let's see, from a certain business faculty member requesting $21,703 in journal and database subscriptions-- what do you think would happen if this piece of paper vanished from my desk, huh?"

Susan hears Anton gasp. _"I sent you that list three weeks ago!"_

"Did you, Anton? Did you? I mean as a librarian, it's very unlikely that I would lose such an important piece of paper. I mean, there's all these card catalogues and alphabetization and library classification systems in here. It's far more likely that I would have to tell Rayna that I never received such a list. And, gosh, I would hate to think how Rayna would react to such a flub."

_"You wouldn't!"_

"I _would_ and that's why I'm gonna need you to cut the crap and tell me where Rayna is."

And that's how Susan ends up running towards the parking deck closest to the business building. 

"Rayna!"

The walking cotton ball that Susan is pretty sure is Rayna teeters faster towards the parking deck. 

"Stop! Stop running!"

Susan's lungs are on fire right now, but she's not going to quit. The only thing that's motivating her are the oddly comforting vibrations coming from her pocket and the awareness that if she fails Crocker will literally and/or figuratively murder them all.

"Rayna, stop! Stop or I swear I'll use your extensions to knit my next cardigan!" 

And that's how they end up holding the December's meeting of the Faculty Research Committee in a parking deck. 

\-------------

Rayna vibrates miserably in her sphere of animal fur. "It's so fucking cold. I thought the planet was supposed to be getting warmer for fuck's sake."

"Didn't you fucking hear, Rayna? It's cold because the Planet didn't want to deprive you of the chance to wear your winter wardrobe," Ford says, scoffing. 

Rayna stomps her foot angrily. "Oh, fuck off." 

Fine like the gallant gentleman he is, whips his coat and scarf off, draping them over Rayna until she begins to look a little like a coatrack. It makes something in Susan's chest twist just a bit, but at her age she's resigned herself never to be treated in such a delicate way, unless it's by accident, like with Fine in Orlando. Susan stares a little too long at the Honda just past Aldo, who has been mercifully quiet in today's meeting. 

"Anyway, as I was saying, I've compiled a list of grants, upcoming conferences, calls for chapters, various other blah blah blahs that might be of interest to your liaison departments. I have some suggestions for specific faculty members, but you know, for whatever reason, I'm also going to leave it to your discretion. And most importantly, in the future, I don't want any of this I'm-going-to-ignore-your-emails-and-calls bullshit, or I will hunt you down. 

Aldo raises his hand. 

Susan sighs, "Yes, Aldo?"

"I would just like to state, ah, for the record, that you can always hunt me down." 

Susan waits for the other shoe to drop. 

"Especially with bosoms like those." 

And there it is. 

"On that note, unless anyone has something to add," Susan glares at Aldo as he raises his hand, "that is relevant to the committee..." Aldo lowers his hand. "I would say this meeting is over." 

Those seem to be the magic words to make everyone vanish. If only Susan can discover the magic words that bring everyone together just as easily.


	11. January's Meeting (Aldo's Choice)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> January's meeting of the Faculty Research Committee.

Susan didn't know it at the time but January would be the month that set a bad precedent that led to very bad things happening. 

Because January, and this is saying it politely, but January is an absolute clusterfuck. 

There's the administrative BS. Annual Compliance Training. She has to sit through FOUR hours of videos and take quizzes about nepotism and sexual harassment and how not to be a horrible driver. It's a necessary evil but the worst part is she had to make sure that her department completes the training as well. It's like herding cats, but if the cats are kind of amazingly well-trained. Like theoretically Susan could have an Instagram account or a YouTube channel because her library cats are so well-trained. But nobody creates an Instagram account because their subordinates do their jobs, and well, it would be wrong, like ethically. There's nothing unethical about cats on Instagram. 

So she's gotten most of her department to do their compliance training, and so all Susan has to do is teach her classes and teach her library instruction sessions, and write some annual reports. Oh, yeah, and somehow find the time to meet wth the Faculty Research Committee or Crocker is going to have her lady balls. 

She tries really, really hard to schedule their monthly meeting but everybody's schedule is so hectic. In fact, Susan tries so hard to schedule a committee and yet they still end up meeting on the last day of the month. On a Tuesday night. In a strip club. 

In Susan's defense, when Aldo was the only committee member with a conflict with the date and time, she didn't automatically assume his "charity event" conflict meant he was going to a strip club. In hindsight, Susan should have, but she was just happy that an evisceration by Crocker wasn't in her future. Susan, by and large, prefers her innards in.

So that's how Susan ends up parking her sensible sedan in a slushy parking lot in an ambiguously ambiguous part of town, surrounded by squat concrete buildings and ramshackle warehouses. She gave a man in a puffy coat $20 for the pleasure. 

Alone in the parking lot, Susan whispers to herself, "So this is how I die." She could trip on the icy, uneven sidewalk in the dark, fall on a hidden piece of rebar puncturing her insides like a wet balloon. She could drop her keys down one of those street grates and freeze to death. Susan hadn't even begun to touch the variations of murder when she spots Ford's sports car pull into the lot. 

Suddenly death doesn't seem as imminent. And then Rayna nearly runs her over. 

Susan is scared to open her eyes. She's cold and everything is wet. If she opens her eyes and sees the light, she's going to be really sad. But she only sees snow, dirty gray snow, and the headlights on Rayna's car.

Ford is yelling at Rayna, his face red. "You're a fucking menace, Boyanov. Like maybe next time, you shouldn't give the fucking chauffeur the fucking day off!" 

Susan nearly sobs with relief.

"I'm not dead," she says gently to the snow, patting the gray slush consolingly. 

"I'm not dead, you guys," Susan yells, her voice triumphantly shrill. 

And then she begins to splutter, brushing the dubious snow away from her mouth. Susan extracts herself from the small, lumpy, slightly icy pile of snow. She's going to be one big bruise in the morning. 

Ford looks over, his forehead just a series of deep wrinkles, his eyes dark with emotion. He keeps shrugging Fine's hand off his shoulder. 

Fine's trying to restrain Ford as Rayna badly maneuvers her monster of a vehicle into at least three parking spaces. "Hey, Coop! You're fine, right? Can you tell Ford to stop yelling at Rayna?"

Susan wobbles slightly as she fetches her purse from the ground. "What the _hell_ , Rayna?" 

Rayna descends from her giant SUV like a Bergdorf Goodman Princess, flicking her hair over the fur collar of her coat. 

"What do you want me to say, Colman? Sorry? You were in my blind spot." 

Susan opens and closes her fists and tries to take a deep breath. "Your whole -- your whole car is a blind spot. Between that stupid car and your -- your stupid hair, I'm not sure how you operate, Rayna." 

Rayna gives her an unimpressed look. "Don't you think you're overreacting at this point? It's not like I hit you or anything, Copeland. Though, I must admit, your reflexes might be described by some as impressive. You jumped in that dirty pile of snow like it contained a winning lottery ticket." 

Ford glares at Rayna, his forehead wrinkled like laundry left languishing too longer in the dryer. "Cooper, do I need to call a fucking ambulance? I can also call my lawyer." 

Rayna scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Oh, please. My lawyer would make your lawyer look like a small nursery school child who has soiled their underpants." Rayna examines her manicure, "And don't we have a committee meeting to attend? I would imagine summoning any authorities would delay the meeting immensely. In addition, any injuries sustained by Costa Rica were caused by reckless enthusiasm on her part."

"I'll give you reckless enthusiasm," Susan mutters under her breath as she picks clumps of motor oil-infused snow off the front of her coat. The fight deflates out of Susan. She's tired. She just wants the meeting to be over and it hasn't even started yet. Susan sighs. "Let's just find Aldo and get this stupid meeting over with."

There's a lot of stamping of feet and staring off into the distance to avoid eye contact as Susan squints at her phone (which thankfully suffered no damage in the snowbank swan dive)

Susan clears her throat. "So, the....Chandelier Club should be a few blocks that way."

So like a swarm of drunk bees, they make their way to the address for the Chandelier Club. As soon of Susan spots the pink neon lights festooning the side of the building, she gets a sinking feeling in her stomach. 

It doesn't help when she hears Ford mutter, "For fuck's sake," under his breath. 

They pass a huddle of women, clad in lingerie and puffy coats, passing around an e-cigarette. And Susan can feel her jaw clench. "That mother _fucker_!"  
"Wait here," Susan shouts behind her as she stomps towards the _strip_ club entrance. 

Susan can feel a sort of berserker librarian rage come over her. She doesn't throw the cover charge or embed her driver's license into the bouncer's skull, like a throwing star, but it's a close thing. 

She's so determined to track Aldo down that she doesn't notice that Ford is following her. 

Aldo is pushing a stack of singles across the edge of the elevated stage. He's splitting his attention between the gold lamé bulge of a male dancer and the sway of the female dancer's breasts. Susan wants to slap the smug, disgustingly pleased look off of Aldo's face. Did he not sit through the FOUR HOURS of compliance training, which, in fact, almost certainly would have covered this particularly asinine scenario if they ever thought that people would be so stupid as to invite a committee to meet in a strip club. 

"Get up, Aldo. We're leaving." 

Aldo "How do you not know that I am not already up?" 

Susan grimaces. "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit." 

Ford claps Aldo on the shoulder. "C'mon, mate. Let's take this outside. Not exactly a friendly environment for all that gender equality if you know what I mean."

Aldo waves at the stage. "It has all the gendered equality! There is the males dancers and the females." 

Susan waves her hands. "The only thing I care about, Aldo, is you getting out of this chair and walking out this disturbingly sticky strip club." 

Susan whirls around, "And I thought I told you to stay outside, Ford. I can handle this." 

"Oh, come off it, Cooper. Drop the fucking bulldog routine. Nobody is challenging your dominance. Or, are you so fucking insecure that I have to literally show my belly." 

"Insecure?" Susan winces a little because that was more than a little shrill. 

Ford begins to tersely unbutton his coat, pulling at his sweater. 

Susan slaps Ford's hands away from his sweater. "Jesus Christ, Ford! Stop!" 

"If a man wants to take off his sweater in a strip club, he can take off his fucking sweater in a fucking strip club." 

Aldo eyes keep bouncing between the strippers and Cooper and Ford. "This is quite a show." 

Susan grits her teeth, "Shut! Up! Aldo." She's virtually squatting in her efforts to keep Ford's sweater down. 

Ford's face is red with exertion. "I AM GOING TO TAKE OFF THIS FUCKING SWEATER." He starts wringing the hem in a desperate attempt to shake Susan off. "AND I AM GOING TO SHOW YOU MY BELLY." 

Susan's only retort is a strained yell. 

"Yeah, you two are gonna have to leave." 

Susan looks up from her position on the floor and there's a very large man. "What? Why?"

The bouncer crosses his arms. "Uh huh. I'll give you a moment to reflect on your current position." 

Susan looks around the strip club. The dancers are giving her kind of sad looks from the stage. 

Susan slowly rises to her feet, blowing some of her hair out of her face. "You may have a point." She straightens her clothes. "But if we're leaving then he's leaving, too," Susan says pointing at Aldo. 

The bouncer looks at Aldo and shrugs. "He's a regular." 

Susan clamps her arms around Aldo. "If I'm leaving, he's leaving!" She closes her eyes tightly, bracing herself for her forceful removal. 

The bouncer tugs on her arm half-heartedly. Susan cracks one eye open. 

The Chandelier Club bouncer shakes his head before patting Aldo on the shoulder. "Yeah, Aldo, I'm going to have to ask you to leave, buddy." 

Aldo raises his hands. "Yes, I understand, Lars. It is not exactly fair for the dancers." He pats Susan's head. "Beautiful committee chair, much as I loathe to say, but you can remove your sweet milky hands from my person now." 

A million years later, they leave the strip club. And Susan almost blows a gasket because Fine and Rayna have vanished. And then Susan notices an SUV parked very illegally on the sidewalk. The front passenger window rolls down and Bradley holds out grease-stained bags out of the window. 

"Rayna got you a peace offering, Coop!" 

Rayna leans over the steering wheel to shout. "Yes, Kublick, I have procured extensively processed meat products for you to consume. I have heard it is a tradition of your people." 

Fine rattles a large drink out of the window. "And there's shakes." 

Susan rubs her forehead. "Everybody get in the car." 

And that's how the Faculty Research Committee ends up meeting in Rayna's car on a Tuesday night outside of a strip club. 

Susan may or may not accidentally on purpose spill her shake in the backseat of Rayna's car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay, you guys. The beginning of the year was SUPER stressful. ALSO this is like the fifth draft of this chapter. I'm hoping to get some serious words done on this in the last bit of this month. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	12. February's Meeting (Rayna's Ultimatum)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Faculty Research Committee meets on Valentine's Day.

On February 1st, Susan sits in her office and lies through her teeth as she composes the minutes from the Faculty Research Committee meeting. 

Susan sends the draft off to Ford with:

_"If this was a courtroom, would I be committing perjury?"_

And then she goes about her day. She makes the schedule for the Reference Desk. And she's about to pop over to Starbucks to get a coffee and maybe get an answer from Ford when she hears loud but muffled noises. 

Susan goes to investigate and is horrified. 

"Cooper!" Ford bellows. 

Susan actually watches Ford peer through one of the shelves and call her name again, like she spends all her time roaming the stacks? Or maybe he thinks she lives in the books and there's a special incantation to summon her? 

The few students in the library on a Wednesday morning are giving Ford _The Look_ , which consists of a very focused stare, sometimes a curled lip, and usually is able to convey, "We're in a library! You're supposed to be quiet in a library, so why is your dumb ass making all this noise?" 

It's a very intense look and Ford still seems oblivious. 

"What are you doing? This is a _library_ ,” Susan hisses as she yanks Ford away from the bookshelf by his elbow. His sweater is ridiculously soft and Susan has to restrain herself from stroking his elbow.

Ford examines his sweater sleeve like her touch is acid from the movie, _Alien_. “It’s not my fault that your stupid librarian offices are so fucking hard to find.” 

Susan rolls her eyes. “It’s in the e-mail signature of literally every e-mail I send, buddy.” 

“Who the fuck reads e-mail signatures?”

Susan throws her hands up in the air. “A lot of people!” 

That last bit ends up being a little louder than Susan intended, and she is not impervious to _The Look_. At least it gives her another excuse to grab Ford’s sweater as she forcefully escorts him to her office. 

Ford looks worriedly around her office like a spider is going to pop out of the corner of her librarian lair. Susan watches him from her swivel-y office chair. “You can sit down, you know.”

Ford lurks in the doorway. “I know.” 

“I’m sorry. Am I being inconsiderate of some undisclosed phobia of chairs?” 

Ford frowns, his brow transforming into a series of skin peaks and valleys. He warily sits down. 

“This chair is alright,” he finally proclaims. “Now, why the fuck am I here?” 

Susan blinks. “How should I know? You were the one shouting for me in the library?” 

“The reason I’m here,” Ford interrupts. 

Susan shakes her head in disbelief. “I’m sorry was that a rhetorical question? Seriously, Ford?” 

Ford tries to put a finger on Susan’s lips to shush her and Susan bats his arm away. 

“The reason I’m here, Cooper, is you take this fucking Faculty Research Committee shit way too seriously.”

“I like my _job_ , Ford. Of course, I take it seriously.” 

“I get some shitty gooble-gaddle in an e-mail about you potentially committing perjury. Now, I understand how there could be some confusion. I _was_ a recurring guest star on the hit television drama, Piscataquis County. I played Michael Pankquist, a special prosecutor tasked to – Actually the details don’t fucking matter, why are you asking a faculty member from the Theatre Department, whether or not you’re committing perjury?” 

Susan stares at him. “I’ve never heard of the television drama, Piscataquis County.” 

“Yes, you have. Don’t be fucking crass.” Ford wriggles his cellphone out of his front pocket. “Now, I will show you how you fucking write minutes for a committee meeting.” And then he taps away on his phone for a few seconds and then says, “There!” 

Susan nearly screams in horror. And when her inbox chimes, she in fact does yell incoherently when she sees that Ford has copied her on an e-mail sent to Crocker and the rest of the committee. 

The contents? 

_We had a meeting on January 31st. Ford, Cooper, Alto, Beverly, and Reyna were in attendance._

_\- Ford_

"What did you do!" Susan hisses. 

"The bare fucking minimum." Ford's attempt to look cool, backfires as the chair unexpectedly rocks back. He flails, clutching at the air.

"Yeah," Susan looks at him unimpressed, "the chairs rock. By the way." 

Any further argument is stalled when Ford's crotch rings. There's a corresponding ding from Susan's computer. 

_What the ever-living fuck is this Ford? I didn't know that one could send actual shit via e-mail. It's like you clambered onto my desk, squatted and took a massive dump-_

Susan has to stop reading. She's tempted to put her head between her knees and take deep breaths. "I hate you so fucking much, Ford." 

Susan drags herself back to her computer screen. "I will _fix_ this. And you need -" 

She nearly screams when a message from Ford appears on the screen in front of her. 

_I'm not sure you know what you're talking about Crocker, but if you'd like me to take a shit on your desk --_

Susan swears the buzz from Ford's cell phone sounds angry, like it's the physical embodiment of Crocker's rage. 

"Stop texting! For the love of god, stop texting, Ford." Susan reaches across her desk and tries to bat the cell phone out of his hand. 

Ford puts up a good fight, but eventually Susan manages to wrestle the phone away. For a second, she wants to gloat, but then she considers her positioning, stretched out, leaning forward, and she glances down and realizes that, yes, her boobs are predominantly predominant. As she glances upward, she notices Ford's eyes darting away. So that's not awkward at all. Susan is running through the 5,493 ways that she could react to this situation, but then there's a courtesy knock at the door. 

"Susan -- oh hello the _girls_ are certainly out, aren't they? I'll avert my eyes for modesty's sake. But I need to ask about my timecard for the month. Do you think I need to -" 

Ford clears his throat. "We were in the middle of something." 

Nancy flutters about in the doorway. "Oh, Susan, sorry to interrupt, I wasn't aware that you were entertaining male company. Is this a _date_? Am I interrupting? I could come back later." 

Susan gives a hearty pull to her top. "It's not a date. Because we're at work." She doesn't add and it's Ford, but Susan wants to and she should, but Ford is right there, so that would be rude, right?

Nancy looks between them. "If you say so, Susan. But I do believe it is your lunch break which would not preclude the opportunity for this to be a date." 

Susan gives Nancy a look, a look that means, for the love of god Nancy cut it out please, and introduces Ford. "Oh, I hadn't realized you hadn't met. Nancy Artingstall meet Ford...Ford. We're on the Faculty Research Committee together." 

Nancy startles. "Oh! _Ohhhhh_. I wasn't aware that you went by Ford Ford. Though you do seem to be in a profession that encourages such eccentricities of nomenclature. Very pleased to meet you Ford Ford." 

Ford offers his hand to Nancy. "Rick Ford."

Nancy shakes his hand enthusiastically, her arm bouncing everywhere. "Oh, I see!Uh. Nancy. That's me. Librarian. And, you know, now that I think of it, I think there's some librarianing for me to do. So." Nancy looks at Susan. "I am going to do that."

"We'll talk about your timecard later, Nancy." 

When Nancy leaves, Susan focuses solely on her computer screen. She clears her throat. In the time that Nancy's been in the room, there's been at least three more e-mails from Crocker. Susan glares at Ford. "I'm going to try to salvage this shit show you started with Dean Crocker. You're scheduling the next committee meeting." 

Ford rolls his eyes. "I'm going to need my phone back."

Susan barely resists the temptation to throw it back at him.

In hindsight, she should have.

The date that Ford schedules the meeting for? February 14th, known in some circles as Valentine's Day. Because apparently, according to Ford, February 14th was the only day that Rayna was available. And only for dinner.

For the next two weeks, Susan glares at the name of the restaurant in her iPhone calendar: Canard Merdique. It squats there on the 14th like a gargoyle, foiling her chance for romance, or, you know, her chance to watch romance movies in her pajamas on Valentine's Day. 

Every time she sees Ford walking to their parking lot, she gestures at him rudely when he's not looking. 

\-------------------

Susan drives to Canard Merdique. Apparently, Rayna has a 7:00pm reservation for five. When she spies the gilded, marble atrocity from her car, she nearly keeps driving. She's not sure she can afford the valet parking, let alone an actual meal. It feels ludicrous coming to such a fancy restaurant on Valentine's Day, but according to Ford this was the only place that Rayna was willing to meet. 

As Susan struggles to find parking, she seriously contemplates the merits of carpooling. And, yet, at the same time, she doesn't want to spend any more time than she has to with the majority of the Faculty Research Committee, not including Fine, of course. 

It's a good thing that she can parallel park like a boss and she's wearing sensible shoes. She still ends up walking four blocks. 

As soon as Susan approaches the entrance of the restaurant, the doors are opened by two impeccably dressed, dour-faced male-modelesque doormen. And, oh god, _they’re_ dressed nicer than she is. They must feel the same way, because before she knows it, they're trying to close the door in her face. Susan wedges her head into the gap and uses the rest of her body to prop the door open. "Hi! I think there's been a small mistake. I go here!" One of the doormen starts gingerly pushing against her forehead. "Or, I have a reservation. I know someone who has a reservation and one of the reserved seats is mine.” 

"She's with me, gentleman." 

Susan nearly falls over, because Ford is in a _tuxedo_. And it's now apparent that her idea of fancy is not this restaurant's idea of fancy and and apparently she's just a mousy vagrant in her black velvet and gold sequin dress. Maybe it's her sensible wool coat? Maybe she needs to be draped in 20 pounds of extinct animal fur to fit into this ridiculous place. They begrudgingly let her enter the lobby of the restaurant. And if she wasn’t feeling self-conscious before, it’s now increased like 1,000%, like in addition to being physically barred from the building, it’s like she's farted and _everybody_ knows. 

"Jesus Christ, this was a mistake," Susan mutters to Ford. Somehow her arm ended up in the crook of his elbow.

"You don't know the half of it, darling," Ford says patting her hand. 

Susan's brain short circuits. 

Ford brings her to their table and, Jesus Christ, Ford was right. 

It's a two-top and there's just five chairs around it. And the whole dining room is staring at them in disgust. 

Susan blindly sits down, frankly collapses into a chair, and tries not to look up, like, at all. 

"Rayna," Susan hisses. "What the hell is wrong with you!" 

"I could ask the same of you, Cupola. You look like you raided a Goodwill for Clowns. I know librarians hate Google-"

"Oh my god, librarians don't hate Google!" 

"But you could have at least Googled the proper attire for Canard Merdique." 

"I'm wearing a dress found in the Special Occasion section at Nordstrom, Rayna. I'm a librarian," she gestures to the enormous pink flounce that is Rayna's outfit. "I can't afford to buy couture vulvas to wear" 

Susan hears a spluttering sound, but she's too horrified to look up. She focuses on the menu in front of her. It's just a series of words: Froth, Broth, Cloth, Sloth, Tooth. No further explanation. The menu also doesn't have prices.

And apparently she says that last bit out loud. 

"Jesus Fucking Christ, Cupertino, you're embarrassingly uncouth. I've seen Bulgarian pigs with better manners." 

Susan wrestles a stack of folders out of her purse. "Any changes to the minutes from the last meeting?" 

She distributes the folders and looks up for a second to take attendance, which isn't exactly hard because they're crowded around a table meant for two. 

"Okay, I'm going to take that as a no. Okay, so Aldo, what’s the status with your departments. You mentioned that Dudaev from Linguistics was -“ A plate appears in front of her. Susan barely has time to move her folder and cellphone out of the way. 

“Uh.” Susan gestures to the plate. “I didn’t order yet, so, uh.” 

“Ignore her, garçon. She’s completely out of her depth.” Rayna proclaims as she studies her folder. 

The waiter disappears as quickly as he appeared. Susan peers into the white bowl. There’s a smudge at the bottom, like somebody forgot to wipe the plate. 

Susan looks around before whispering conspiratorially. “So, are they going to bring the food out? Serve it at the table.” 

Susan watches in horror as Rayna selects a dainty spoon, scraping the plate, and bringing it to her mouth. Her mouth open and closes like a baby bird. 

“Exquisite,” Rayna finally proclaims. Fine hums in agreement. 

Susan looks down into her bowl again. She looks at Aldo and Ford waiting for someone to explain the folie à deux happening on the other side of the table.

Aldo shrugs, peering into his own bowl. “Food is like sex, no? I myself cannot be satisfied with such a small amount.” He runs his finger across the bottom of his bowl, before licking it slowly. “This is more like the foreplay.” 

Susan looks away as Aldo starts pumping his finger in and out of his mouth, moaning. 

Ford slaps Aldo’s hand away from his face before crossing his arms again. “All these places think they’re so fucking fancy. They’re just a bunch of knobheads with a hard-on for pretense and small portions.”

Susan scrutinizes her plate before picking up her spoon and dragging it around the bottom of the bowl. She’s not sure there’s anything really in there. When she puts the spoon in her mouth, she maybe tastes caviar, but maybe that’s just the taste of the spoon. 

Susan replaces her spoon on the table. “Uh, okay. So, like I was saying, Aldo, Dudaev. Status. They were looking into an NEH grant?” 

The table feels a little less claustrophobic and Susan looks up and Aldo is gone. She looks around and he’s just walking around various tables in the restaurant. Susan thinks she hears “a little spice in your love life” from across the dining room, but then she definitely wills her ears deaf. She doesn’t want to hear a member of the Faculty Research Committee propositioning people on Valentine’s Day for a ménage à trois. She doesn’t even want to fucking have to think about how she would put that in the minutes. “You know what, I’ll email Dr. Dudaev tomorrow.” 

And then the waiter appears again with eggshells containing truffle broth. No plates, just an eggshell. The waiter stands there until Susan takes it and sips at the “broth.” The waiter holds his hand out expectantly and Susan awkwardly places the eggshell back in his hand. 

If she wasn’t feeling uncomfortable enough, she notices Rayna’s hand extend from her pink flounce before disappearing underneath the table. Susan hopes her eyes aren’t as big as saucers as Fine jumps before settling languidly into his seat. 

Susan’s not feeling particularly generous. “So Bradley, Professor Fine, any updates from English, History, Folklore and Mythology, Kinesiology, Creative Writing or Women and Gender Studies?” 

Fine smooths his hands down the lapels of his jacket before smiling winningly at her. Susan, in that moment, hates herself just a little bit, when her stomach flutters. It’s hard to tell if it’s hunger or a representation of lust. Either way, Susan hates herself. 

They make their way through committee business and the three remaining courses, a sachet filled with a fish mousse, a small cube of beef, and three minuscule orbs of poached fruits covered in gold leaf. 

Susan has to live with the memory of Aldo dangling his fish mousse sachet up and down on his plate. "Reminds me of, how you say, tea bag." 

Susan, a fan of a nice oolong herself, had said, "I can see that." 

Aldo had then pressed his fingers against his lips contemplatively. "Ah, my English. I meant to say the teabagging." 

Susan will never enjoy a cup of tea again. Never. Again.

Susan is starving and she needs to eat something, and she's tired of sitting at this table. And she's way too close to Aldo for comfort. And the bill comes and Susan is scared, but Rayna whips out a card. 

"Thank you, P Card," Rayna giggles as she places a university purchasing card in the overlarge check holder that looks like it's half a cow's worth of leather. She passes it to the waiter.

And yet, somehow, Susan's hand ends up on the check holder. And there's a little bit of a tug of war going on with the waiter. 

"You're not trying to put this on the university's tab, are you Rayna?" 

Rayna looks at her like she's dog vomit in a Louboutin. 

Susan uses two hands to wrestle the check holder away from the waiter. Opening it, reveals her deepest and darkest fears. Susan extracts the P Card and then closes it again. 

"You can't use this to pay for this meal, Rayna. It's unethical and illegal!"

Rayna sighs. "Am I supposed to care about your little poor people feelings? This is how things work in the Business Department." 

Susan looks at the waiter plaintively. "Can we split the check?" 

She prays. The bill is $1,500. And that's before the tip. 

The waiter informs her in no uncertain terms that they do not split checks at Canard Merdique. 

Susan resists the urge to look at the rest of the table and extracts her credit card from her wallet. She's glad that no one comments on the way that her hands shake as she gives her credit card to the waiter. She makes the rest of the table pay for the tip.

Susan leaves Canard Merdique in a daze. The worst part is underneath the sick feeling of spending $1,500, she's still hungry. And yet the thought of spending any more money makes her want to barf. 

She sits in her car for a while, doing math in her head. With $1,500, she could buy 150 pizza - that's pizza three times a week for an entire year. With $1,500, she could buy a new computer. With $1,500, she could fly to Paris. It goes on and on. 

Susan will admit she screams when there's a knock on her side window. Ford's there, hands shoved into the armpits of his tuxedos. "Let me in, Cooper, it's fucking freezing." 

Susan stares at him through the window numbly before opening the door. 

"Budge over," Ford says. And then he tries to sit on her. 

Susan slaps at his back. "Get off me! Ford! I'm not crawling over the center console in this dress!" 

Ford gets out of the car and motions to her impatiently. 

Susan huffs and walks around to the passenger door. She watches, annoyed, as Ford poke around her mid-size sedan like it's a completely foreign land. Susan stares at her windshield waits mulishly for an explanation. Finally, he wrings his hands on the leather of the steering wheel. He writhes around in the seat and then something heavy lands in Susan's lap. It's a thick fold of bills. 

"What the fuck, Ford!"

"After that fucking joke of a meal, I'm still hungry. Feel like I could eat a burger or two." 

Susan stares at him dumbly. "There's $1,200 here." 

Ford sniffs. "So you're buying, right?" 

Ford turns her keys in the ignition and stares in the side view mirror before pulling into the street. 

They go get burgers. It's the best thing Susan eats that night. Large, meaty, cheesy and greasy, the juices from the cheeseburger run down her wrist. It's a weirdly sensual meal, kind of appropriate for Valentine's Day. 

It costs $40 with a nice tip.


	13. March's Meeting - Pretty Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Faculty Research Committee meets in March at the university's rec center.

Susan doesn't have any problem writing up the minutes for February's meeting. Even if the location was bullshit and Rayna's actions were bullshit, they were surprisingly productive as a committee. Perhaps, it's a belated halo effect - the relief of not being out $1,500 that puts her in such a productive mood. 

When it comes time to schedule March's meeting, Susan is pretty much done with any expectations of normalcy so when Fine, her sweet baby of an English professor, says that he's devoting any free time in the month of March to his triathlon training, Susan takes it in stride. It's definitely not because she thinks Fine has a perfectly proportioned body. She finds a Saturday where everyone is available, well, she's available once she trades three weekend shifts with Shannon, but it's definitely worth it to watch Fine stretch very thoroughly in a peach neoprene number. 

Sometimes Susan can't believe that she actually touched Dr. Bradley Fine, like his body was on top of her body, and there was kissing and junk. She was _pretty_ sure that had actually happened, not that Fine had ever outwardly acknowledged their brief romantic interaction in Orlando. 

So Susan is just standing in the rec center parking lot at 6 o'clock in the morning just surreptitiously checking Fine out. No big deal. And then Ford shows up in the shortest pair of white shorts she has ever seen in her entire life and she works on a college campus so that's saying something. He's in white shorts and a sweatband and that's it. Susan's hindbrain recoils. Her hands flutter to her eyes without a second thought. 

"Do you have a problem, Cooper?" 

"My eyes!" 

Ford crosses his arms against his very bare chest. "It's what I wear to exercise, Cooper. What's your problem?"

"We're watching Fine exercise and you're wearing tennis whites." 

"So?"

"I wasn't expecting to see that much leg, mister." Or crotch, she adds silently to herself. Susan looks around, hoping that the gods or a puritanical jogger will intervene. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra shirt in your car, you know, just hanging out? 

Ford just glares in response. 

Susan sighs. "I don't really care what you do with your chesticles, Ford. And I don't even really care about your sartorial choices, mister. But for your sake, I've hoped you've applied a lot of sunscreen." Susan gestures to her head in a halo-like motion. "Between this," she gestures to her chest, "and this, you're definitely going to be making friends with the sun and your dermatologist." 

"For your fucking information, I'm already friends with my dermatologist." Ford gestures to his face. "You don't get this without that. I've got the skin of a baby, if that baby that moisturized and used Korean skin care products religiously." Ford glares at Susan. "Regular babies have nothing on me." 

At least Ford is walking to his car, Susan will take that as a win. She could do without him shouting, "I have superior baby skin." 

Even Fine looks up from his fervent stretching with that remark. 

Ford returns, now wearing a jacket, but unfortunately the image of Ford shirtless has been seared into Susan's retinas. She looks at Fine's contortions as a palate cleanser of sorts. Susan takes a sip of coffee. 

Ford looks enviously at Susan's cup, before looking around. "These disrespectful twats." 

Susan just keeps sipping her coffee.

Ford produces a phone, but she's not quite sure where he was keeping it. She really doesn't want to know. He starts tapping angrily away at his cellphone screen. 

Susan personally would not want to be the recipient of one of Ford's emoji-laden, profanity-laced text messages. Susan likes to think she's fairly "with it" as a librarian. For a librarian? But she has to Google almost all of the words in Ford's texts.

Ford updates her with a grumble. "Boyanov and Aldo are on their way." 

Susan takes this into consideration and she makes herself less of a target for Rayna's horrible driving. She moves away from the bumper of her car and onto the sidewalk. She hunkers down with her cup of coffee. Susan plans to enjoy her caffeination for as long as possible. 

A car that Susan doesn't recognize pulls into the parking lot - it's not Rayna's deathmobile or the slightly dilapidated sports car that Aldo favors - the dash peppered with speeding and parking tickets. It's a svelte, European sedan. And it's just sitting there, idling in the parking lot. 

Susan looks between Ford and Fine, does their behavior look suspicious? Has she unwittingly scheduled a Faculty Research Committee meeting in an area known for illicit activity? And then Susan mentally acknowledges that no undercover cop would be driving around in a European sedan. Nevertheless, Susan is somewhat relieved when Aldo emerges from the passenger side. She's about to wave, alerting Aldo to the location of the Faculty Research Committee, when Aldo trots around to the driver's door. She's expecting a quick good-bye or a word of thanks, but there's a flash of tongue and Susan quickly averts her eyes. She realizes after a few seconds that she should probably lower her hand. After what feels like an eternity, Susan chances it. She looks back towards the car, and they're still going at it. There are moans. Aldo's butt is wagging back and forth like a cat on the prowl. Not that Susan would know that, she doesn't have any cats. 

Susan is gathering her librarian nerve to say something, but Ford beats her to the punch, _thank god_. 

"Aldo! Stop arsing about." 

Aldo pushes away from the car. He looks like a cat that has gotten the canary, a bloated cat, stuffed into the canary's clothes. "Goodbye, Anton. I will see you later, yes?" 

Anton looks Aldo up and down. "Yes, we have talked about this. And I do very much like that shirt." 

Aldo brushes his chest. "I like this shirt, too." 

Anton and Aldo stare at each other. 

"Right," Ford says strolling towards the car. He pulls Aldo away from the car. "Time to bugger off now, Anton." 

Anton looks around. "Ah, yes, okay, I guess. Bye, you guys." 

Susan waves reflexively. "Bye, Anton." 

Ford drags Aldo to the sidewalk. "You fucking forgot we had a meeting. And you show up 20 minutes late wearing another man's trousers." 

Aldo looks at Susan and winks. "How could I possibly forget meeting with such a ravishing woman?" 

Susan arches an eyebrow. "Uh huh." 

Aldo purrs,"I am very excited to witness the athletic _prowess_ of Dr. Fine."

Susan looks at him expectedly. 

"And, of course, discuss the matters of the Faculty Research Committee," Aldo adds weakly. 

"Yeah, you think _I_ want to spend hours and hours watching Bradley work out, with the sweat and the muscles?" She had intended for that to sound like a rhetorical question, but judging by Aldo's knowing smirk and the severe look on Ford's face, she has a feeling she's less than successful. 

Susan decides to answer her own rhetorical question, which is about as awkward as it sounds. "No," she says, dragging the sound out, like the length of her negative response will immediately convince them otherwise. "Of course...not." 

Susan is very relieved when Rayna appears because this is a dead-end street of a conversation smack in the middle of Awkward Town.

"Good morn-" 

" _Don't_ talk to me." 

Rayna's hair is like a pancake, compared, to her usual Yorkshire pudding-like bouffant. Her eyes are hidden by large sunglasses. 

Susan is not going to mess around with _that_. No need to tell her twice. Susan would have been content with that existence until Rayna apparently has a change of heart. Susan finds herself being studied by Rayna. 

"Give me that coffee. I will pay you."

It's kind of sad that Susan has to think twice about that. There's only three hearty sips or one big gulp left, but it's really good coffee. Susan looks to Ford and Aldo like perhaps she's just imagined Rayna's weird demand.

"Uh. It's nearly em-"

"Fifty."

Susan reluctantly parts with her coffee. She's only a librarian. There's a lot she can do with $50, like support her favorite podcast for 10 months or start saving up for her ALA membership renewal. 

"Can we get this fucking meeting started or are we gonna stand about all day holding our fucking arses?" 

Fine pauses guiltily, both hands on his buttocks. "This is for swimming!"

"It's for swimming, Ford. What if Fine got a cramp in his ass and drowned!" Susan can't believe she just said these words out loud. 

"You've got to admit," Aldo says under his breath. "That's one fine ass. It would be a shame for it to drown." 

Rayna spits out $15 worth of coffee.

\----

Walking into the aquatic area of the rec center is kind of like walking into an armpit, a humid, chlorine-scented armpit. It's oppressive. Susan fans herself with a stack of papers as she sits on the bleachers with Aldo, Rayna, and Ford. They all look enviously at Fine in the water. The water must feel nice and refreshingly wet, instead of this weird, hot and heavy moisture blanket. 

They painfully make their way through the agenda, but they're kind of hitting their Faculty Research Committee groove. Work is getting done. Rayna reports back on her departments. 

"So then I told those fuckers in Nutrition that if they couldn't figure out a way to get a grant in this political climate that they were pretty fucking dense." 

Susan pauses, pen poised above her notes. "Uh, is this, um, verbatim?" 

Rayna shifts five pounds of bangs out of her face. "Yes." 

Susan only has a little bit of a heart attack. 

"They're getting results, what more do you want? Oh yes, and they found that little list and that Ad-lib guise to be very helpful." 

Ford takes a break from chewing on his pen to comment. "The fuck are you talking about, Rayna?" 

"The Wise Guide?" 

Susan shakes her head. "Yeah, that's still not it." 

"The Lies Guide?" 

Ford smacks a hand over his face. 

"Do not look at them, sweet business professor lady. I myself believe that you can recall the two word name for the very a nice grant reference guide that the Susan Cooper created." 

Rayna looks at the group. "The Lyceum Glumpy." 

Susan makes an abortive gesture with her pen."Nope, nope, she's getting farther away. Let's stop while we're ahead." 

Ford massages his forehead. "It's two god damn words." 

Rayna flips her hair, in a movement that somehow manages to be an offensive and defensive maneuver. "What the shit does it matter? I gave them the right URL. You're kind of being ridiculous right now." 

"But are you fucking walking up to faculty, Rayna, and saying, 'Check out this Lyceum Glumpy'. Because then, yeah, I think I'm allowed to be fucking ridiculous." 

"Maybe you guys could stop shouting? Some of us are trying to challenge both our physical and mental endurance!" Fine shouts from the shallow end. 

Ford jabs two fingers into the air. "How 'bout I challenge the physical endurance of your -"

Susan leans over to Aldo. "Please talk now," she whispers. 

"I have also been talking to the faculty! Nobody ever asks Aldo!" 

Susan's eyes widen minutely. She wasn't exactly prepared for such an outburst. "Uh, so how did those conversations go, Aldo?" 

"They were okay. I only received two slaps. There was a swing. There were many," Aldo waggles his eyebrows," discoveries."

Susan pauses. "Um. So. Full disclosure I'm not going to put that in the minutes. Let's try this again. Aldo." 

"Yes."

"Can you please share the results of your outreach to faculty in Languages, Linguistics, Social Justice, Social Work, Legal Studies, Philosophy in regards to publications of research, conference attendance, grants, and the like?"

Aldo sighs. "Several faculty in the departments of Linguistics and Social Work were very excited by the prospect of additional funds for conference travel, provided that they were presenting. They have subsequently submitted proposals for several national conferences." 

"Thank you, Aldo." 

Susan is writing in her notebook and she nearly misses Fine getting out of the pool.

"I'm just going to hop in the showers," Fine says, toweling his hair. 

Susan very nearly says, "Can I come with?" But Susan is not Aldo and she pushes that instinct down _hard_. 

"I'll see you guys in the cycle room." 

Susan looks around at the various committee meeting detritus strewn on the bleachers. "Yeah, let me start packing this stuff up." 

As she shoves the third thick folder into her tote bag, she briefly mourns the trees who sacrificed their lives to make this bullshit committee meeting possible. 

\---------

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone gunning it on an exercise cycle? It's not a pretty sight. Susan makes sure to keep her notebook out of the sweat radius. But Susan worries a bit for Fine’s safety and theirs - the bike sways alarming with Fine’s frantic pedaling as he gasps out a progress report on his departments. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Ford exclaims from his position, slouched against an unused exercise bike. “Is this really how we’re gonna spend the whole morning?” 

Fine drags his eyes away from the piece of paper Aldo is holding in front of his face. His usually beautiful visage is distorted by the frenetic activity, more resembling an overheated toad, than a suave English professor. “You think. I'm enjoying. This shit?”

“I think you could have found two hours that’s not tits o’clock on a fucking Saturday to meet.” 

Fine tilts his head in disgust and stops pedaling. The pedals keep moving, whirling with momentum and Fine raises his legs. “ You know you’re a real jerk, Ford. We meet at a strip club but suddenly a rec center is such a fucking hardship.” 

“That strip club was disgusting!” Rayna says with a sneer. 

Susan rolls her eyes. "The you nearly vehicular-manslaughtering me really stands out.”

“Well, maybe it’s because I fucking like Aldo more than you, Beverly.” 

“Oh, that’s really great, Ford. You're a real class act. I should have known not to expect anything less." 

"Other people have weekends, too, Beverly. We're all not having a fucking mid-life crisis and trying to prove our masculinity with fucking arbitrary rites of physical endurance." 

Bradley flops off the exercise bike, his legs are a little wobbly. "You say that to my face, you fucker." 

Susan looks at Aldo and Rayna in alarm. 

"I thought I did say it to your fucking face? You're so big-headed how could I miss? 

Fine nearly recoils in shock. "That's real rich, Ford, coming from _you_! You're 90% ego and 10% talent, you hack." 

Ford pushes Fine. 

"Hey!" Susan chides.

Fine pushes back.

"Both of you stop!" But Susan's orders fall on deaf ears, Fine and Ford keep pushing each other back and forth like a violent yo-yo. 

"Aldo, can you please do something?" 

"I'm waiting to see if they might kiss. This would be a good moment for the popcorn, no?" 

Susan pushes her notebook against Aldo's chest. She snatches the water bottle from Fine's exercise bike and stomps over to the Ford-Fine pissing contest.

She pops the top and squeezes the bottle, aiming the resulting stream of water at Ford and Fine, who splutter, and eventually stop trying to rip each other's heads off. Ford is glaring at her, his chest heaving. Susan does _not_ stare at the trails of transparency in his white clothing. 

Susan keeps squeezing until she runs out of water and then she throws the flimsy plastic water bottle at them. 

"My water bottle," Fine protests weakly. 

Susan crosses her arms. "I hope you got your shit sorted out. Now hit the showers." 

Fine and Ford skulk off to the showering facility. 

Rayna and Aldo try to follow. Susan grabs them by their arms. "Not you two." 

"They might need," Aldo waggles his eyebrows, "adult supervision." 

"Gross. Aldo. No." 

Rayna struggles in Susan's grip, "Fine might need help washing his back."

"Jesus Christ, Rayna, take that thirstiness down like four notches, like way the fuck down." 

Rayna sniffs, "You're one to talk." 

"Ooooooooooooh," Aldo says, "Catfight!" 

Susan and Rayna look at him. "Shut up, Aldo." 

\--------

Fine and Ford emerge from the showers. Fine looks particularly sheepish and it's a cute look. Ford just looks irate. It's strangely also a cute look. 

Fine starts stretching. "Well, I guess it's time to get started on running those laps." 

Ford crosses his arms. "Are you that fucking daft?" 

"Is that really called for, Ford? Really?" 

"Okay. We're not doing a round two of this shit. Fine, we're about to have a faculty mutiny on our hands. So this is how this is going to go down. We are going to finish our meeting. And then you can go back to running, Fine." 

Fine crosses his arms. "I've already lost my momentum." Wow, sulky is definitely not an attractive look on Bradley Fine.

"I personally need to eat breakfast or I'm going to dismantle this committee with my bare exquisitely-manicured hands." 

Susan looks at her watch. "Jesus, Rayna, you didn't eat breakfast? It's nearly lunchtime." 

Aldo raises his arm. "I need breakfast, too. I only ate a d-"

Susan covers her ears."Do not finish that sentence, Aldo. I swear to fucking god." 

"We got the fucking context clues, buddy, the way you nearly ate that guy's tongue this morning." 

"Maybe I say doughnut." Aldo pauses and waggles his eyebrows. "But it was not doughnut." 

Susan slaps a hand to her forehead. "I need a drink."

\-----

They get brunch at a place not too far from campus. They order food. They address everything on the agenda - Susan ends the meeting and promptly orders a mimosa. Fine finishes his eggs and makes noises about finishing his training for the day. He does that stupid kind of finger wave to summon a waiter. "I hate to dine and dash, but duty calls." 

"What fucking duty?" Ford mumbles into his chicken sandwich. 

Susan eyes him over the rim of her mimosa. "For the love of god, don't start this again." 

Rayna eyes Fine before daintily wiping her mouth. "Well, Fiddler, Altoona, Copper, I'm rather tired. I'm going to head home." 

Aldo pauses and puts his drink down. "It is noon. Lie better, Rayna." 

Rayna sneers. "Like I would listen to the opinion of a walking venereal disease." 

Aldo raises his drink. "That's Dr. Walking Venereal Disease to you. Ciao, bitch." 

Rayna whips her hair back and puts her sunglasses on. "Oh, what the fuck ever. Are you ready, Fine?"

"Sure, sure, Rayna." Fine gives the table a jaunty wave. "See you guys later." He curls an arm around Rayna's waist and they leave the restaurant leaning against each other.

"What a fucking twat," Ford grumbles into his man-mosa. 

Susan takes a healthy sip of her mimosa. 

Aldo finishes his drink in one big gulp. "Well, this has been fun, my darlings, but I have to go see a man about a shirt." He presses a kiss against Susan's cheek and lays another one on Ford's forehead.

Ford brushes him away. "Get off me, you crazy Italian bastard."

"I will see you next week for the game?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine." 

Aldo slaps him heartily on the back. 

The restaurant doesn't do bottomless mimosas, but that's nothing a credit card and sheer will can't fix.

This is Susan's first mistake. 

Sleeping with Ford is her second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were curious, the word that Rayna was looking for was LibGuide.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	14. The Meeting After (April)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the brunch and April’s meeting. (Ford and Susan sleep together and things are awkward)

Susan wakes up blissfully boneless, and that’s when she realizes that something had gone seriously off track. She scrunches her eyes closed, but that doesn't fend off the barrage of memories projecting against her eyelids like a shitty picture at a run-down drive-in movie theater. She wiggles guiltily against the insanely comfortable sheets and feels the warmth of another person, a Ford-shaped person. Susan allows herself to slide off the edge of the bed. It's like something out of Cirque du Soleil or Mission Impossible, a stretch of sheet gently cradles her to the ground. 

She abandons the sheet cocoon and crawls. She scoops the items of clothing that she finds against her chest as she heads towards the door. Susan feels a little like a meerkat as she rears up to open the door very, very carefully. When she's safely ensconced in the hallway, she investigates her finds. She's got some socks, hers and one of Ford's, her jeans and underwear, which ugh, but nothing for the more boobily parts of her body. Cool. Susan almost slumps against the wall. She's not really cut out for this stealthy, sneaking around stuff. Also it's really, really weird to walk around a strange house,topless, but Susan needs to get to the living room.

She had been caught up in the heat of the moment, but Susan's pretty sure that's where her top and bra had come off. There had been a few intensely competitive rounds of Yahtzee - Susan had a natural disadvantage still slightly wobbly from the flurry of mimosas and Ford had made the most of it. After having to listen to him crow,"And that's motherfucking Yahtzee," for the fifth time, Susan had spied the well-worn cardboard of Trivial Pursuit. She had established her polymathic dominance. Multiple times. And then, completely sober following her triumphs, she had tried to dominate Ford's mouth with hers. And then she had straddled Ford on his couch. And.

Susan shakes her head, hoping to dislodge some persistent thoughts, but they're still lurking in the corner of her mind. The firmness of Ford's body. The heat. Susan walks faster to the couch. Once she has her bra, her purse, her shirt, she can leave. Susan finds her purse, but she's in the middle of searching Ford's well-upholstered couch cushions when she hears, "Looking for this, dearie?" 

Susan uses her lightning quick librarian reflexes, the same ones that catch a pile of books before they can tumble off a book cart, to snatch a pillow off the couch and hold it to her chest. And then she screams. Because that's definitely her bra that she doesn't wash enough dangling from an older woman's fingertips.

\---------

Ford stretches. He's ready to luxuriate in the presence of Dr. Susan Cooper, maybe experience a little Sunday Morning Delight, when he hears a distant scream. It takes him a second to realize that Cooper's presence is missing from his bed. He scrambles to make up for that lost second. 

"I'm coming, Cooper!" He yells as he charges down the stairs toward her screams. 

\----------  
Susan is still screaming and then Ford comes scrambling down the stairs armed with a very threatening chevron-patterned pillow. "The bloody fuck Cooper fuck," he yells as he loses traction on the well-waxed wood floors and careens into Susan and the couch. 

He gets a handful of boob on the way down. 

\-------

Ford really doesn't understand how he could take like four years of dance and still lack basic fucking coordination. He's trying to be the hero, but now he looks like a fucking twat. But at least the softness of Susan is a small consolation as he crashes into the couch. 

\--------

Susan slaps Ford's hand off of her chest. "Get off of me." 

"For fuck's sake, Cooper, I didn't do it on purpose."

"Such language, Ricky darling." 

Susan is treated to a parade of emotions across Ford's face. "I thought you were on one of your cruises," he states accusingly. 

The older woman brushes her hair away from her face. "I thought I was going on a cruise, too, Ricky darling. But they decided they needed to hose down the ship, some outbreak of one or another, and sicking up for a week in the middle of an ocean is not exactly my idea of a grand time." 

This seems to throw Ford for a loop if the series of forehead wrinkles is any indication. Maybe Susan could publish on the subject, the Cooper Forehead Index. 

"Cooper, this is my mother, Regina. Mother, this is Susan." 

Susan tries to counteract the tunnel vision going on. It's really hard _not_ to focus on her bra daintily dangling from the other woman's hand. Regina is sitting at the kitchen counter. Susan's back aches just looking at her posture. Her white hair is cut into a no-nonsense, immaculate bob. Regina has a pair of rose gold reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose and while one hand is holding her bra, the other is clasping a Kindle. Even if Susan was wearing a shirt (and a bra), she has the sneaking suspicion that she would still feel inadequate. 

"Ah, Susan, a pleasure to meet you. I believe this brassiere belongs to you. Unless Ricky decided to start up a cathouse in my absence."

Wow, what a great first impression, Susan thinks to herself, before she realizes she maybe shouldn't care if Ford's mother think she's a whore because _this_ is never happening again. "Last time I checked I am not a sex worker. Yes, that is my bra." Susan clutches the pillow against her chest even harder as she inches closer to Ford's mother. As soon as it's in reach, she snatches it away and retreats to the half-bath on the first floor, like a wounded animal. 

Ford slinks into the bathroom after her and closes the door. 

Susan sighs and thrusts the couch pillow in his direction. He's pressed up against the sink and she's straddling a toilet. It's not the biggest half-bath she's ever been in. 

"I can't believe you live with your mother," Susan hisses as she flails into her bra. 

"Let's get this straight. I don't live with my mother. She lives with me." 

“I can’t even believe you’re having this conversation, Susan,” she mutters to herself inside of her shirt. Why is it putting clothes on in front of another person is so much more awkward than taking them off? 

Once Susan’s head emerges from her shirt, she tries not to look too closely at Ford. Looking at her reflection in the mirror isn’t much better. Between the inner turmoil and bed hair, she looks like a chestnut colored puffball. 

“For the love of - I look like an electrocuted hamster.” 

Ford does this weird thing with his face. “A very sexy electrocuted hamster.” 

Susan covers her face, mortified. “Oh, god,” she moans, “This was such a mistake.” 

She overlooks the way Ford’s face crumples before annoyance washes over his features. “I know what mistakes look like, Cooper. I once walked on the set of The Price is Right in a bathrobe thinking it was the loo, but I’m pretty fucking sure that this,” he gestures back and forth between them,”isn’t a fucking mistake.” 

Susan doesn’t look at him. “I’ve got to go.”

Susan doesn’t talk to Ford for two weeks.

———————  
Unfortunately, just because Susan doesn’t talk to Ford, it doesn’t mean he’s decided to leave midway through the semester to act in a sweeping epic set in Antarctica.

She’s not that lucky.

Susan hates when her mother is right. As her mother would say,” I don’t understand why you think you’re so smart, Susan. If you can’t hold a man, how are you going to make anything of yourself.”

It’s beyond awkward and Susan desperately tries to keep the committee meeting on track. Which is hard because Ford is there, not that Ford is hard, well, he might be. Susan shakes her head trying to derail that particular train of thought. 

She flips through some paper in front of her. “Uh, like I was saying, um, I believe the Holtz proposal should be removed from consideration. Failure to include the required documentation -“ 

Ford raps his knuckles on the table. “Ding, ding, ding. So just because _you_ say the proposal should be removed, we should just remove it?” 

Ford looks around at the rest of the committee, “That sounds a little unfair, don’t it?” Rayna doesn’t look up from examining her nails.

“Uh, sure,” Fine coughs, “Hmm. What proposal are we looking at?”

Aldo just looks between Ford and Susan. “I am pretty sure that this is not about the proposal.” 

Ford scoffs. “Of course, it’s about the fucking proposal!” Ford points at Susan, “It seems unfair to deprive,” he squints at the paper in front of him,”Dr. Holtz of a chance.” Ford jabs his finger against the proposal. “Just because Dr. Susan Cooper says so.” 

Susan rolls her eyes. “Let’s get this straight. _I_ don’t have anything against Dr. Holtz. I just -” 

“Really? We’re supposed to believe that?” 

“Can you stop interrupting me, Dr. Ford?” 

“I just think that Dr. Holtz deserves a chance.”

“The bylaws are very clear -“

Ford jumps out of his chair. “Fuck the bylaws!”

Susan bristles and rises to her feet. She places her hands on the desk and leans forward. “The _bylaws_ state that incomplete proposals -“ 

“What’s the real reason, Cooper?” 

Susan grits her teeth. “Incomplete proposals are not eligible to receive funds -“

Ford shakes his head. “A real convenient excuse!” 

Susan glowers. She’s not going to let Ford interrupt her again. “Beyond the incomplete documentation that should have been included if he -“ Ford opens his mouth and Susan turns up the volume, “THE SUBMITTED PROPOSAL IS ALSO RIFE WITH ERRORS, INCLUDING, AND I FUCKING QUOTE “THERE WILL BE EXPERIMENTS ON HUMANS BUT I AM PLANNING ON JUST KEEPING THAT A SECRET, WINK WINK, SO I DO NOT NEED IRB APPROVAL.” 

There’s a knock on the door and Susan stops abruptly. Nancy pops her head in the door. “I am so terribly sorry to interrupt, Susan, but perhaps the volume is getting a teensy-weensy bit high, I mean I’m sure there are louder places like football stadiums or even 50 Cent concerts, but unfortunately this is a library, which really has unrealistic expectations as far as quiet. It is a community space, you know, but, as I was saying, for a library, things might be little on the high side. Just a tad.” 

Susan touches her forehead in embarrassment. “Things got a little heated. It will be quieter.”

Nancy laughs nervously. “Well, it better, how awkward would it be to kick my own boss, a librarian, out of the library.” 

Susan laughs forcefully. “Nobody wants that! Least of all me, because you’re right! How embarrassing would that be? Now, that you’ve provided that helpful reminder about the noise, Nancy, how ‘bout you head back to the Reference Desk!” Susan smiles widely and walks towards the door.

Nancy tilts her head up trying to get a view of Ford at the table. 

Susan resists the urge to throw up her hand like she’s trying to block a free throw. 

“He really doesn’t look like the sort to live with his mum, does he?” Nancy whispers to Susan. 

“We’re not talking about this right now,” Susan hisses. 

Nancy waggles her eyebrows and whispers some more. “Because things are getting heated, huh? He really fills out that mock turtleneck.” 

Susan uses one finger to guide Nancy’s face out of the path of the door. “Goodbye, Nancy.” 

Susan shuts the door. Nancy scrunches her face against the glass panel of the door. “I’m here for you, Susan.” She waves Nancy away from the door before whirling around to face the rest of the committee, finger pointed. “And just to make sure everyone knows this, I did not add that ‘wink wink’ in to highlight the deficiencies of the Holtz proposal.”

Fine slaps his paper against the table. “Well, I’ve got to agree with Coop on this one, Ford.”

Susan watches Ford purse his lips pensively. Oh god, she can almost see the cogs turning. Then suddenly Ford leans back in his seat and proclaims, “Well, he sounds a bit like an unethical twat.” He sniffs. “Seems fair that we don’t give this wanker any fucking money.”

“See, I told you this was not about the proposal.” Aldo says, enraptured from his seat, phone pointed towards them.

“How much longer do I have to be subjected to your droning? I have an appointment with a nail artist in 45 minutes.”

Susan shuffles her papers against the desk. “Uh-huh. Okay. We’re going to move on. Also, Aldo, you’re deleting that video from your phone. This meeting is confidential.” 

Aldo hums. “What if I make it a JIF? GIF? The thing for the memes with the moving pictures.”

Ford shakes his head. “None of the fucking above.”

Susan stretches her hand out. “Yeah, I’m gonna need your phone.”

Aldo grins,”Oh, okay, how can I resist a very pretty woman.” 

—————————

Susan ushers the members of the Faculty Research Committee out of the library meeting room. “Okay, next meeting is May 8. I don’t care if you tattoo it on your forehead, but I’m only sending one reminder e-mail this time, you guys.” 

Susan turns around to inspect the meeting room before locking up. She’s ready to get back to work and leave this disaster of a meeting behind. When she spots Ford casually leaning against the table, hips cocked, arms wide. She throws her head back in exasperation.

“Things were getting heated, Cooper? That’s an interesting choice of words. Any other adjectives you’d like to use?”

Susan groans. “I really can’t deal with any more Fordness today. What are you even talking about?” 

Ford crosses his arms. “Adjectives are -“ 

“I know what adjectives are,” Susan splutters. 

“Well, perhaps, you’d like to add some other adjectives. Are you feeling heated, Susan? Wet? Moi-“

Susan claps her hand over Rick’s mouth. “Nope. Nope. We’re not using _that_ adjective. Ever.” Susan shivers in disgust. “Especially not at work.”

Susan feels a wetness on her hand and she begins to pull away, but Ford’s hands move from the table to cover her butt. “Gross, Ford, did you just lick my hand?” 

Susan wipes her wet hand against Ford’s mock turtleneck, which is kind of a mistake, because she can feel the ripples of muscle through the thin cotton. Reflexively, Susan sags against Ford. Ford embraces her, pressing her closer. Susan tilts her head up and murmurs against Ford’s throat. “We’re not,” Jesus Christ, why does Ford smell so good. “We’re not doing this at work.” 

Ford chuckles warmly, the vibrations are pleasant. “Just one kiss, Cooper.” He brushes his nose against her cheek and whispers in her ear. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman, darling.” 

Susan wriggles against Ford. “A perfect gentleman, huh?” Susan whispers against his lips. 

“Scout’s fucking honor.” 

Ford keeps his promise, more or less. Well, less, but they both look somewhat work appropriate when they leave the meeting room. 

Susan pushes her hair into place as she locks the door. “I’ll see you May 8, Ford.”

“Or, tonight?” 

“Nope. I have an event at the library tonight.” Ford leans against the door. Susan brushes past him to test the doorknob and for some unknown reason utters, “But I don’t have any plans tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need to get my laptop fixed, and this chapter was created entirely on my cellphone. So like any stupid typos, please let me know.


	15. May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Cooper experience domesticity of sorts.

Susan frowns at her phone. 

She taps out a message. _Your mom friended me on Facebook. Not cool._ Susan scrolls through some Why GIFs looking for the perfect representation of her feelings. She’s torn between a catty reality tv confessional or a sulking woman from one of the eight billion procedural dramas that Susan doesn’t have time to watch. Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, Ford replies. And it’s a series of emojis - donut, monkey covering eyes, alligator. 

Susan rolls her eyes. “Oh jeez.” Susan mutters under her breath. “Do not see alligator? Do not see — that asshole.” 

_You don’t see the problem? Seriously?_

_me min is a piece fly good soman_

Susan squints at her phone. “You know what? I give up.” She puts her phone down and washes her hands before dusting the counter with flour. And of course, it’s when she’s almost elbow deep in dough that her phone rings. Susan groans when she sees the Caller ID, looks at her dough-covered hands, and then tentatively uses a knuckle to accept the call. 

_“You didn’t text me back.”_

“That was not a text.  
I don’t know even know what that was. How does one reply to a random letter spasm?”

_“Common courtesy would be to respond instead of having me rely on a tiny fucking message that you read it.”_

Susan rolls her eyes as she rolls out a ball of dough. “Common courtesy would actually be looking at your phone when you text.” 

_“Karen didn’t want me hurting the students’ feelings.”_

Susan tries not to puke. She’s not exactly the biggest fan of Karen and her perfect hair and how nice she is. But it’s the kind of nice that’s a little too nice to be real. “Well, that was considerate of Karen, I guess.” 

_“And you want to know the worst fucking part? What’s the fucking point of mollycoddling these potatoes. I once auditioned in the alleyway of a nightclub while the casting director took a piss on a fucking cat by accident.”_

Susan wrinkles her nose in disgust.“On a cat?”

_“Yes, on a bloody cat. He was so startled that he fell over and broke his arm. You know how that little demon girl’s head twists all around in The Exorcist, it was like that except it was his arm. Completely backwards, bone poking through. And then I continued to audition in the ambulance with the bloke on the way to hospital. He kept begging me to stop. Now, that’s fucking distracting. And you know what? These fucking tater tots are never going to learn the value of hard work if my texting during their audition is that distracting. It doesn’t help that these fucking auditions are the worst. There’s a little too much jazz hands for my taste.”_

“Wow, uh, that’s, uh, intense.” Susan frowns. Ford really needs to stop calling the students tater tots. “Wait a sec. I thought the theater department was doing Macbeth.” 

_“That’s exactly my fucking point. Everyone’s putting on a fuss for a summer production.”_

Susan gives the dough one last pat before placing the ball in a bowl. “Well, if it makes you feel better our conference proposal was accepted.”

_“Oh, yeah, that’s great.”_ Ford deadpans.

Susan sighs. “You don’t remember the conference, do you? The one in Reno.” She wipes her hands on her apron. 

_“Why the fuck would I want to go to Reno?”_

“And that’s what you said the first time,” Susan says as she washes her hands. “And then you said -“ 

_“I’ll think of something. Yeah, I remember. It’s that marijuana in academia conference.”_

Susan rolls her eyes. “GET Higher Education. It’s an acronym, I think. Pretty sure. And there’s no marijuana.”

_“I’m sure there’ll be marijuana somewhere. I’ll find it.”_

“Please don’t find marijuana.” 

_“Or, you’ll what?”_

Susan shrugs her arms in the middle her kitchen. “I don’t know? I’ll tell your mom. You know, we’re friends on Facebook now.” 

_“Not cool, Cooper.”_

“Uh-huh. I’m making roast chicken for dinner.” 

_“Oh yeah? I’m about 20 minutes out.”_

“Yeah, well, get excited. Because I’m also making breakfast buns.”

Ford groans. _”My personal trainer thanks you.”_

——————————

Ford raises one corner of his silk eye mask. He uses an elbow to prop himself up against one of Susan’s many pillows. She doesn’t have French cotton sheets, but her bed is still decently comfortable. Susan’s face is highlighted with white light as she stares stubbornly at her phone.

“For the love of - it’s—“ Ford squints at the bright green numbers of the alarm clock. “1:17am, Cooper. Go to sleep.”

Ford watches Susan stare at her phone, dragging her finger across the screen. “I’ve got a J and I’m going to blow your mother out of the water,” she mutters.

Ford worms his way closer to Susan and rests his head on her pillow. His new vantage point allows him to see Cooper’s Words with Friends board. “There’s something else you can blow.” 

Susan looks away from her phone. For a mere second, Ford’s heart somehow finds his way to his throat. Maybe it’s heartburn. Susan tugs his sleep mask over his eyes.

“Well, don’t complain to me that you’re tired tomorrow,” Ford grumbles as he turns into his pillow. “I’m not running the fucking Faculty Research meeting while you nap on your yoga mat under your desk.” 

His silk mask is very effective at blocking out light while simultaneously improving the quality of his skin, but he definitely doesn’t jump when a hand beseechingly pats his arm. “But I made your favorite breakfast buns.” 

“How ‘bout you just go the fuck to sleep?” 

Ford can hear Susan huff. “Fine, you jerk.” Ford can feel Susan stretching to place her phone on the side table.

For a few minutes, the bedroom is quiet save for the rustling of sheets as Susan tries to find a comfortable position.   
Ford raises his arm and Susan snuggles against his side. “Goodnight, Ford.” 

Ford opens his mouth and lets a loud snore escape. Susan slaps his chest. “Goodnight, Cooper,” he murmurs into her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, this chapter was super, super rushed. Please forgive any typos, general crappiness, etc. I thought an update, however rushed, would be better than no update. Especially given the fact that November will be spent on NaNoWriMo. Only maybe three more chapters max left in this fic I think?
> 
> Thanks for reading


	16. GET Higher Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan and Ford go to a conference.

Susan struts through the Reno airport and it’s like something out of the movie. It almost feels like she’s walking in slow motion. It’s just her, Nancy, Ford, and Aldo and it feels like they’ve been walking through this concourse for hours. They’re all wearing sunglasses. They’re walking in formation. They could be on their way to rob a bank. She does a hair toss and it’s like everybody in the airport stops and stares because she’s just that much of a badass. They could be on their way to play in a championship game. But no, they’re here to kick some serious presentation butt. And then they are standing backstage. They’ve been hooked up to microphones. Through the curtains, Susan can see slivers of white. She can feel the heat of the lights from backstage. “Jiminy Christmas, is it hot in here or is just me?” Susan fans her face. Ford grabs her by the arm in the backstage shadows. It’s hard to hear him over the cheers of the crowd. 

“You think what? That I fucking love you? You better wake up, darling.”

Susan can feel her stomach clench. Ford’s timing sucks. “What?” 

“Cooper. You need to wake up. Cooper!” 

Susan flails awake with a groan. Her neck protests the sudden movement. “This is what Rayna’s neck must feel like all the time under 800 pounds of hair extensions,” she mutters. Susan blearily drags an arm across her face. She grimaces when her sleeve becomes wet with drool. She nearly jumps out of her seat when she feels something brush against her cheek. 

“You missed a spot, Cooper.”

“Ford? Why are you here? I thought you were afraid of economy class. And I quote, ‘You booked coach, Susan? It’s like putting in a fucking order for Deep Vein Thrombosis.’” 

“Maybe I respect myself too much to allow a corporation to treat me like a fucking animal. Maybe I just missed you, Cooper.” Ford waves a shrimp around like he’s a conductor of an orchestra.

Susan looks around, bleary-eyed. “Where did Aisle Seat go?” She slaps at the air controls, twisting knobs until she can feel the sweet bliss of cool air return. Aisle Seat keeps turning off the air when Susan isn’t looking. 

“Loo. Do you want a shrimp? They’re just giving them out in First Class.”

Susan stretches languidly and contemplates her craving of shrimp. 

“Sure,” she says with a shrug. Susan opens her mouth but the shrimp never comes. Susan opens her eye and Aisle Seat is tapping her foot with a flight attendant in tow. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to return to your seat. Also, please do not feed shrimp to the passengers in Economy Class.” 

“See you in Reno, darling.” Ford kisses her cheek and presses a handful of shrimp into her hand. He whispers in her ear, “Just a little something for you to remember me by.” 

“Ah, nothing says romance like a handful of ill-gotten crustaceans.”

Ford winks. “I’ll have you know I’m very fucking romantic.” 

Ford jerks as Aisle Seat gets a little aggressive with her elbows. “Will you just move already? I didn’t pay to just stand in the aisle.”

Ford rolls his eyes. “Standing’s better than sitting in that sad excuse for a seat. I’ve been in coffins with more leg room.”

Susan winces as Ford takes a jab to the ribs before retreating to First Class.

—————

The hotel feels like pure chaos. Between the flashing lights, aggressively colorful pattern of the carpet and the swarms of socially awkward faculty members drunk on the power of travel reimbursement and alcohol, it’s not the oasis that Susan pictured after 10 hours of traveling. 

Susan stands in the line to check in and it’s really, really long. 

“And to think, Cooper, we could have gone to fucking Cannes.” 

“And to think, Ford, we could also keep our jobs.” 

Ford readjusts his sunglasses and looks around skeptically. “I’m not sure it’s worth it.” 

Susan rolls her eyes. “Uh, it’s better than a committee meeting. And you really need to take off your sunglasses. We’re indoors. It’s night time.” 

Ford adjusts his very masculine silk infinity scarf in an effort to shield his face from view. “These are their hunting grounds,” he hisses. 

“TMZ is not going to just swoop out of nowhere, Ford.” 

“Could you be any louder, Cooper?” He presses a finger to her lips. “Just shush that beautiful face.” 

Susan slaps his hand away from her face. “First, you haven’t washed your hands recently. Second, you don’t tell me to shush. If anything I tell people to shush, but only when necessary, because I’m not going to reinforce unrealistic expectations of quiet in the library.”

“You’re in a fucking mood. I told you flying Economy was a mistake.” 

“Yeah, well, excuse me, I wasn’t going to get reimbursed by the university to fly First Class.” 

“Reimbursement, my arse.” 

“No, no, no. None of this blasé I-have-plenty-of-money-who-needs-to-be-reimbursed bull crap. You’re just too scared to fill out the paperwork. You don’t have the balls to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops.”

Ford snorts. “I do all my own stunts. One time I faced down not one, but two Grizzly bears, while I was white water rafting. And I was on fire.” 

“Fire Grizzly River was a terrible movie.” 

“It’s Grizzly Fire River. And it’s a cinematic fucking masterpiece. And maybe I have better things to do with my time than fill out stupid forms begging for money.”

Susan barely stops herself from rolling her eyes. “You do know that’s like most of what the Faculty Research Committee is about, right?” 

Ford does roll his eyes.   
“Aldo, mate. Back me up here.” 

Aldo turns from his place in line, a wide smile on his face. “Grizzly Fire River was a fine movie. Not the sort of bears that I was expecting, but it ultimately managed to be a, how you say, pleasurable viewing experience.” Aldo finishes his sentence with a purr. Susan really wants the line to check-in to move faster. “Also, as I also traveled in the First Class, I can definitely attest to the fact that it was worth not dealing with all that paperwork. It’s now how I prefer my time to be, how you say, tied up.” He winks. 

“What is wrong with you?” Susan says. For a second, she thinks there’s a weird echo in the cavernous hotel lobby until she realizes and Ford we’re talking at the same time. They look awkwardly at each other because apparently they’re one of _those_ couples.

Susan is literally saved by Nancy. “Susan! Susan! Thank goodness I’ve found you. You weren’t answering any of my texts or calls. I left several voice messages. I was hesitant to leave the TV in the room unless they announced your untimely demise on the news.”

Susan sighs. “The only thing that’s dead is my cell phone.” 

Nancy tugs on Susan’s arm. “I’ve already checked in. You don’t need to be here. Do you know where we need to be? The buffet. Susan, they have 42 cheeses. Forty-two! And it’s All-You-Can-Eat. We can get reckless with our cholesterol.”

Susan looks between Ford and Nancy. She could suffer, waiting in line that curls around the corner, in some weird nod to couple solidarity. Or, she could eat cheese. 

She brushes her lips against Ford’s cheek. “I’ll see you later.” 

Ford wraps an arm loosely around her waist. “Eat some Manchego for me, darling.” 

“You don’t need to tell me twice.”

Susan having worked with Nancy for a very long time, doesn’t recoil, when she joins the informal cuddle huddle. 

“Not to interrupt, but I thought it would be helpful to mention that we’re in Room 1504, since you mentioned that your cell phone is dead, Susan. In case you wanted to call, Ford, not for a booty call or anything, but maybe for a booty call? Honestly, it’s not really my right to put restrictions on your conversations with Susan. But, however, I respectfully request if there’s any,” Nancy lower and raises her eyebrows suggestively, “hanky-panky, that it doesn’t take place in our room. And really, I should stop talking now - Susan, help!” 

Susan pats Nancy’s arm consolingly. “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” 

“I’m just very excited about the cheese. It’s right over there. There are forty-two kinds!” 

“We’re getting the cheese, Nance. This is definitely happening.” 

Nancy claps her hands. “I have a feeling, Susan, that this is going to be the best conference ever!”


	17. GET Higher Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion.

By the time, Susan manages to drag Nancy away from the cheese buffet and up to their suite on the 15th floor, Susan is exhausted. She’s filled with cheese and only a little amount of regret. She guides Nancy down the hall, overwhelmingly aware of her body’s protests to the period of high intensity cheese consumption that was the cheese buffet. Each one of Nancy’s groans seems impossibly loud in the hush of the hotel corridor. “You need to be quiet, Nance. People are trying to sleep.” 

Nancy holds her stomach as they pass a room, the sound of muffled cheers spilling into the hallway. “Honestly, Susan, I wouldn’t describe their activities as trying to sleep. Sleep with each other, maybe.” 

“Not those people. Other people. Probably. It’s 10:30. Somebody is sleeping. Somewhere.” Susan gestures to a random hotel door.

“Honestly, Susan, I think it’s probably more likely that they’re having orgies. You know, conference sex with loads and loads of strangers. But when they go to write their conference report, they’ll probably just call it ‘networking’.” Nancy punctuates her sentence with a jab of an elbow. “Do you get it, Susan?”

“Nance, please, I have to review submitted conference reports. Please, please do not ruin the term networking for me. Also, I can guarantee you if they went anywhere near that fucking cheese buffet, they’re not having sex with anybody.” Susan presses an arm against her torso. “God, I feel like a bloated hippo corpse just chilling next to the Nile, minding my own decomposing business, while vultures pick at my flesh.” 

“Ooh, like one of those whales that end up on the beach and then it explodes.” Nancy groans before pausing awkwardly in the hotel hallway. “Wait. Don’t mention explosions. Mentioning explosions was a mistake.” Nancy proceeds to shuffle towards their hotel room. 

Susan hangs back, leery of the sudden change in Nancy’s body language. “Look, there’s only one bathroom in the hotel room, Nancy. Do I need to make alternative arrangements? I can go hang out at the gift shop or something.”

Nancy only answers with the flailing of her arms as she shuffles faster down the hallway towards their room. 

Susan watches as Nancy’s interpretation of panicked windmill forces Ford to abandon his meticulously crafted “I’m just a cool guy leaning casually against this hotel wall” position. 

Ford, as if sensing Nancy’s desperation for the toilet, begins to inch his way closer to Susan. 

Susan waves her arms behind Nancy’s back, gesturing towards Nancy as she struggles with the key card. _Help her, please._

Ford’s face becomes a series of wrinkles. _You’re her friend. You help her._

Susan rolls her eyes. _You’re closer. You know what? Never mind._

“Hey, Nance. Let me help you open the door, sweetie.”

“I really do appreciate the gesture, Susan, but I think I would appreciate both of you maintaining your distance right now. I’m still coming to terms with my apparent sudden lactose intolerance.”

Ford shakes his head wildly back and forth and beats a speedy retreat. 

Susan winces. “Uh. Okay. Um. I’m going to go with Ford for a bit.” 

“Take your time,” Nancy whispers sadly. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

Susan leans against the railing of the elevator as they make the 20-floor journey to Ford’s hotel room. “I thought you were going to hang out with Aldo.” 

Ford shakes his head. “He started nattering on about distributing charitable donations.”

“Oh _no_.” 

“Yeah, I learned that fucking lesson the first go-round. Between that and the six months that I spent undercover as a competitive pole dancer for my role in the critically acclaimed film, _Climb!!!_. Susan swears she can hear the three question marks in the film’s title. I played a John Katt, a young man looking for a second chance after he’s dropped from his college gymnastics team when his grades slip as he works two jobs to support himself and his ailing mother.” 

Ford looks over and frowns. Susan is hunched over her cell phone, her hands are claws. “Cooper? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t tell you.” 

“For fuck’s sake,I can take a little TMI.”

“I just remembered my cell phone is dead.” 

Ford looks at Susan strangely. “I’m pretty sure you’ve done without your cell phone before. It’s not like it’s _dead dead_ unless you managed to drop it in some cheese fondue.”

“Uh-huh, okay, yeah, you don’t understand. I am a _librarian_ and I have never wanted to Google anything more in my entire life.” 

“Google what?” 

“I need to see the Wikipedia page for _Climb!!!_. When was this? How old were you and still trying to pass off as a college student? Who was your mother? Oh my god, what do the promo photos look like? Is there a trailer? Please, Jesus, I hope there’s a trailer.”

Susan presses her body against Ford’s. “Ford,” she whispers huskily.

Ford’s eyes are drawn to the corner of Susan’s mouth. He wonders if he’d be able to taste the cheeses consumed by his Midwestern Dairy Queen.“Yes, Cooper?” 

“Please.” Susan brushes her hands against the front pockets of his jeans. 

Ford resists the urge to grab one of her hands as she _thoroughly_ explores his front pockets….and then his back pockets?

“Please give me your cell phone, Ford.” 

“For fuck’s sake,” Ford growls. “Show some fucking self-control.” He pulls her closer.

Susan resists the urge to shiver. Grumbling Ford might be her favorite Ford. She loves the way that his angry protests translate into delicious vibrations that travel throughout her torso. Susan lightly drags her canines across the taut skin of Ford’s throat. “I’ll show you self-control.” She pulls away from Ford, triumphant, his phone clutched in one of her hands. “I’m going to Google _after_ ,” Susan says, winking.

Susan isn’t prepared for Ford to crowd her against the other side of the elevator. “Are you sure about that, Cooper? I have a feeling that by the time I’m done with you, you’re going to be fucking staring at a new tab in your Internet browser unable to remember what you were going to look up in the first place.” 

Ford slots his thigh between Susan’s legs. “When I’m done with you,” he whispers. “You’re going to fucking forget what Google is.” 

“Huh. Okay. So you’re saying I should probably Google first.” 

“Probably.”  
————————————

Any thoughts Susan has of Googling her boyfriend’s filmography are driven away when she sees Ford’s hotel room. 

“Are you kidding me? Your room has two bathrooms?” 

“Behold the perks of being a celebrity, darling.” 

Susan rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. You mean, behold the perks of not getting reimbursed by the University. Well, I’m going to take advantage of the perks of being your girlfriend and take a shower.”

“A shower?” 

“Don’t make that weird puppy dog face at me. Have you seen that shower? It’s like they accidentally put a car wash in your room. You could fit eight people in it!” 

“Is that an invitation?” 

Susan wraps her arms around Ford’s neck. “I don’t know, is it? And, just so you know, I _will_ be stealing one of your bathrobes.”

They end up in matching robes, watching too many episodes of Chopped. 

“I can’t believe he called it a fucking Panna Cotta. It’s a fucking yogurt.” 

“Amateur move,” Susan says with a sage nod. 

Susan looks at her now-charged cell phone. The promo picture from _Climb!!!_ might be the best wallpaper ever. “I better head back before Nancy freaks out. You know, more than she already is.” 

Susan seems to roll forever before she reaches the edge of the bed.

Ford stretches an arm out half-heartedly. “Don’t leave me.”

Susan presses a loud kiss to his forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------  
Susan thought she had woken up early, but apparently it wasn’t early enough. 

“Can you believe that this is the actual line, Susan? You would think that they would have one of those apps that lets you order ahead. This, quite frankly, is a little bit ridiculous. I mean, who is this desperate for caffeination?”

Susan stares blearily at the coffee counter. She can barely see it in the distance. “I am this desperate for caffeination.” 

“I can only imagine the mark-up. These conferences basically amount to highway robbery. I suspect that if we drove five minutes in that direction, the prices would be cheaper and the line would be much shorter.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“I mean, honestly, Susan. We could just use the coffee pot in the room.” 

“I mean, honestly, Nance, I respect myself way too much to drink what literally tastes like lukewarm bean water.” Susan holds a finger up to interrupt Nancy’s retort. “Because, believe me, I tried. And when I say bean water, I’m not talking about the glorious coffee bean, I mean like some gross black bean water. Or pintos.” Susan wrinkles her nose. “We’re not going to talk about it.”

“It just seems supremely unfair that we have to stand in this line, which, I swear, we’ve been in for years. Actual years, Susan. Perhaps, it’s time to throw in the towel.”

Susan looks at the ceiling like some sort of deranged turkey and tries to decide a rational approach to this situation. She definitely needs caffeine at some point, but maybe it could wait until after - 

“Cooper.”

Susan blinks. She can’t be that caffeine deprived. 

She looks down and Ford is there. He’s holding a Venti Starbucks cup in her direction.

“What’s this?”

“What does it fucking look like? Your usual. It’s bad enough I had to tell the barista. I’m not saying it again.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t had my morning coffee yet. I guess, I’m just a little stunned that you know my usual.”

“For a second, I thought I was speaking in tongues. Venti grande triple sec white mocha cocoa french press drip.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“Great! You’ve got coffee. Now, we can go go!” Nancy claps her hands merrily. “You know, I really would actually like to see that presentation on incorporating digital media projects into the pedagogy.”

Susan looks puzzled. “What about you, Nance?” 

“I was merely standing in line for moral support. I’m a very good friend.” 

——————————————-

The presentation goes well. It feels like 50 minutes of hell, but only one person left halfway through, and people clapped at the end. Ford and Aldo nearly got into fisticuffs during the Q&A portion but the less said about that, the better. 

They get sushi and then they hit the cheese buffet again, which Susan regrets a lot. It’s not a great combo. 

Then there are many drinks, which Susan regrets slightly less. Her hangover is no joke. You know what is a joke, though? When Susan wakes up to a ring on her finger. 

Susan closes her eyes and then opens them slowly. Nope, there’s definitely still a ring on her finger. Susan pats her arm around in the oversized bed until her hand manages to make contact with a warm, slightly oily sphere. “Ford,” she hisses. 

Ford grumbles and rolls over. 

Susan stretches her toes in his direction. She thinks she makes contact with his thigh. “Ford.” 

Ford wraps a hand around her ankle and moves her foot a safe distance away from his crotch. “What, Cooper? I’m trying to sleep.” 

“I think we got married.” 

“No, we just paid $285, plus tax, to have a weird party where Aldo and Nancy watched us promise to love each other forever.” 

“Shit.” 

Ford pushes his sleep mask up. “Already regretting not getting the premier gold wedding package.” 

“Uh, we dodged a bullet not having a bridal garter and you know it.” 

“Crushed Aldo’s hopes and dreams you mean.” 

Susan laughs and then groans. “Ow, my head.” 

“Do you want me to kiss it better?” Ford murmurs. 

Susan yawns. “Maybe later.” 

Ford pulls Susan to his chest. “Smart. We’ll need all energy to deal with the fucking paparazzi.”

“Uh-huh.”  
———————-

Rick Ford Married!?! 

06/22/2017 9:38 PDT 

Rick Ford has tied the knot! We think. Rick Ford was spotted earlier this week in Reno, Nevada. Multiple sources indicate that the former _Piscataquis County_ actor his currently staying in the most luxurious suite at the Reno Ray Resort Hotel. 

[Rick Ford wearing Alexander McQueen scarf and Tom Ford sunglasses while standing in check-in line at Reno Ray Resort Hotel]

The _Grizzly Fire River_ star was photographed several times getting up close and personal with his suspected bride. 

[Rick Ford and Mysterious Brunette indulging in the infamous Reno Ray Cheese Buffet]

[Rick Ford and Librarian Bride getting intimate at the Reno Ray Night Club]

Preliminary reports suggest that the new Mrs. Ford is a librarian at the same university where the Climb!!! actor spends his time in Virginia. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more details. 

————————

Crocker shoves her computer mouse away from her in disgust.

“I can’t believe those assholes got married and didn’t invite me to the wedding.” 

Patrick pokes his head in. “Who got married?” 

“Jesus Christ. Get off my damn jock, Patrick. I feel like I can’t even take a shit without you trying to Tweetagram it.” 

“Understandable, ma’am.” 

“You’re damn right it’s understandable. Now get back to work. I don’t pay you to fucking haunt my doorway.” 

Crocker leans in closer to her computer monitor and hits refresh on her screen. “Can you believe these assholes?” She mutters to herself. “Last fucking time I play matchmaker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a great friend, Hien. Elephants were born in the time it took me to write this. 
> 
> Thank you very very very much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> And here's the Academia AU nobody wanted. I'm finding it extremely therapeutic though so that's actually a lovely benefit. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
